A  TRIO  OF 

EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

FRENCH  ENGRAVERS  OF 
PORTRAITS 
IN  MINIATURE 


A  TRIO  OF 

EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

FRENCH  ENGRAVERS  OF 
PORTRAITS 
IN  MINIATURE 


OF  THIS  BOOK  THERE  HAVE  BEEN  PRINTED  ONE 
HUNDRED    AND     SIXTY-ONE     COPIES  ON 
IMPERIAL  JAPAN  PAPER  BEARING  THE 
STAMP  OF  THE  JAPANESE  GOV- 
ERNMENT   MILL    AND  NO 
LONGER  EXPORTED 


A  TRIO  OF 

EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

FRENCH    ENGRAVERS  OF 
PORTRAITS 
IN  MINIATURE 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2013 


http://archive.org/details/eighteenthcenturyOOandr 


COPYRIGHT,    1899,  BY 
WILLIAM  LORING  ANDREWS 


INSCRIBED 
TO 

€l)e  ^ocietp  of  ^tmopiix\t$ 
of 

l^etD  iorft 


IN  RECOGNITION  OF  ITS  EFFORTS 
TO  REVIVE  THE  DECLINING 
ART  OF  ENGRAVING 


CONTENTS 


I 

Introduction,  giving  a  short  ac- 
count OF  THE  VARIOUS  METHODS 
OF  ENGRAVING  ON  METAL 

II 

A  Trio  of  Eighteenth  Century 
French  Engravers 
Etienne  FicauET 
Pierre  Savart 
Jean  Baptiste  de  Grateloup 

III 

Extracts  FROM  La  Calcografia 
OF  Giuseppe  Longhi 

IV 

List  of  Portraits  Engraved  by 
Etienne  FicauET 
Pierre  Savart 
Jean  Baptiste  de  Grateloup 


WITH  EXCEPTION   OF  THE  FOLLOWING,  WHICH 
ARE  REDUCED  IN  SIZE,  THE  PHOTOGRAVURE 
REPRODUCTIONS  IN  THIS  BOOK  ARE 
OF  THE    SAME   DIMENSIONS  AS 
THE  PICTURES  FROM  WHICH 
THEY     ARE  TAKEN 

WATER  COLOR  BY  GEORGE  H.  BOUGHTON. 
PORTRAITS  OF 
QUEEN  ELIZABETH 
AMELIA  ELIZABETH,   LANDGRAVINE  OF  HESSE 
BENJAMIN  WEST 
W.  WYCHERLY 
PAUL  SANDBY 
SAMUEL  PUFENDORFF 
MADAME    DE  MAINTENON 
ETCHINGS  BY 
CHARLES  JACQUES  AND   SEYMOUR  HADEN 
AND 

FRONTISPIECE  TO  "  l'eUROPE  ILLUSTRE." 


LIST  OF  THE 
ILLUSTRATIONS 


J.  B.  Bossuet    ....  Frontispiece 

Engraved  by  Jean  Baptiste  de  Grateloup 


Title-page  vii 

Designed  and  Engraved  by  E.  Davis  French 

On  the  Banks  of  the  Hudson    ...  4 

After  Water  Color  by  George  H.  Boughton 

Niello   5 

By  Maso  Finiguerra 

Queen  Elizabeth  11 

From  Geminie's  Anatomy,  1559 

Venice  18 

Line  Engraving  from  Rogers'  Poems 

Benjamin  West  21 

Stipple  Engraving 

Landscape  with  Willows    ....  25 

Etcliing  "  a  I'eau  forte  pur  "  by  Charlesjacqucs 

The  Towing  Path  27 

Dry  point  by  Seymour  i^aden 


XIII 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

W.  Wycherley  29 

Mezzotint.    J.  Smith,  fecit,  1793 

Amelia  Elizabeth,  Landgravineof  Hesse  34 

Engraved  by  Ludwig  von  Siegen,  1642 

Ann  Hathaway's  Cottage    ■    •    -    ■  31 

Aquatint.    S.  Ireland,  delt. 

Paul  Sandby  39 

Stipple  Engraving 

Voltaire  .  46 

Engraved  by  Etienne  Ficquet 

Samuel  Pufendorff  47 

Engraved  by  Etienne  Ficquet 

Marie  Antoinette  47 

Engraved  by  Pierre  Savart 

Charles  Eisen  51 

Engraved  by  Etienne  Ficquet 

Madame  de  Maintenon  55 

Engraved  by  Etienne  Ficquet 

Frontispiece  to  "  L'Europe  illustre  "  65 

C.  Eisen,  inv. 

J.  B.  Rousseau   71 

Engraved  by  Etienne  Ficquet 

Catinat  75 

Engraved  by  Pierre  Savart 


xiv 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

Fenelon  78 

Engraved  by  Pierre  Savart 

Racine  81 

Engraved  by  Pierre  Savart 

Adrienne  Lecouvreur  85 

Engraved  by  Jean  Baptiste  de  Grateloup 

Dryden  89 

Engraved  by  Jean  Baptiste  de  Grateloup 

La  Fontaine   98 

Engraved  by  Etienne  Ficquet 

Saint  Joseph  99 

Engraved  by  Longhi 

Tail  Piece  107 

P.  P.  Choffard,  fecit 


XV 


INTRODUCTION 


The  "Baptism  of  Christ,"— Niello  ascribed  to  Maso  Finiguerra.* 


HETHER  the  art  of  taking  impressions  on 


born  and  cradled  in  sunny  Italy  or  in  a  more  north- 
ern and  less  genial  clime,  is  a  question  not  suscept- 
ible of  positive  solution,  and,  like  the  origin  of 
wood-engraving,  remains  veiled  in  the  mists  of 
*  From  a  print  in  the  collection  of  Mr.  Junius  S.  Morgan. 


paper  from  engraved  metal  plates  was 


5 


INTRODUCTION 


the  past.  Vasari  ascribes  the  discovery,  which 
was  only  second  in  importance  to  that  of  movable 
metallic  types,  to  Maso  Finiguerra,  a  Florentine 
enameller,  goldsmith  and  worker  in  niello*  (a  very 
ancient  and  beautiful  art),  who,  about  the  middle 
of  the  fifteenth  century,  disclosed  the  invention  to 
his  compatriots,  Baccio  Baldini,  Sandro  Botticelli, 
and  Andrea  Mantegna,  by  whom,  especially  the 
latter,  the  new  art  was  developed  and  advanced 
until  it  shone  forth  in  full  refulgence  in  the  work 
of  the  great  master,  Marc  Antonio  Raimondi. 

John  Gutenberg  of  Mentz,  "premier  maitre  im- 
primeur,"  printed  his  Latin  Bible,  the  wonder  of  all 
succeeding  ages,  between  the  years  1450  and  1453, 
so  that  the  transition  from  engraving  on  wood  to 
engraving  on  metal  followed  closely  upon,  if  it  were 

Niello,  N  I E  L  L  E  ,  a  design  in  black  on  a  surface  of  silver,  as 
that  of  a  plaque,  chalice,  or  any  ornamental  or  useful  object,  formed 
by  engraving  the  design  and  then  filling  up  the  incised  furrows  with 
an  alloy,  composed  of  silver,  copper,  lead,  crude  sulphur  and  borax, 
thus  producing  the  effect  of  a  black  drawing  on  the  bright  surface. 
The  process  is  of  Italian  origin,  and  is  still  extensively  practiced  in 
Russia,  where  the  finest  niello  is  now  produced.  In  many  examples, 
conversely,  the  ground  is  cut  out  and  inlaid  with  the  black  alloy, 
on  which  the  design  appears  white  or  bright. — The  Century  Dic- 
tionary. 

6 


INTRODUCTION 


not  co-eval  with,  the  change  from  wooden  blocks 
to  metal  types  for  letter-press  printing. 

The  invention  of  the  art  of  engraving  on  metal 
has  been  accounted  for  by  the  usually  inaccurate 
Vasari,"  as  he  has  been  styled,  in  the  following 
manner:  By  accident  a  package  of  damp  linen  was 
laid  upon  a  silver  plate  ready  to  be  ' '  n  i  e  l  l  e  e  , "  into 
the  incised  lines  of  which  oil  and  soot  had  been 
rubbed  in  order  to  show  the  effect  of  the  work. 
Upon  removing  the  linen  its  weight  and  moistness 
were  found  to  have  caused  the  lines  of  the  engrav- 
ing to  be  accurately  reproduced  upon  it;  *  and  so, 
for  this  great  discovery  we  are  indebted,  it  may  be, 
to  the  carelessness  of  a  laundry  maid.  Other  writers 
tell  us  that  the  **orfevres-nielleurs"  were 

*  A  mold  of  the  engraving  was  taken  in  fine  earth,  and  from 
this  mold  a  sulphur  cast.  This  cast  was  a  counterpart  of  the  silver, 
though  in  another  substance.  It  was  rubbed  with  soot  and  oil 
until  all  its  cavities  were  filled  with  black,  and  the  surface  of  the 
sulphur  being  then  cleaned,  the  artist  was  enabled  to  see  precisely 
what  the  effect  of  his  silver  engraving  would  be  when  it  should 
come  to  be  filled  with  black  in  like  manner.  This  practice  led  to 
the  taking,  occasionally,  an  impression  on  wet  paper  from  the  plate 
itself.  This  was  effected  by  rubbing  the  silver  with  soot  and  oil 
till  all  the  graved  work  was  filled  with  it  ;  then  wiping  the  surface, 
laying  on  it  a  piece  of  damped  paper,  and  rolling  it  by  hand  with  a 
round  smooth  roller. — Maberly's  "  Print  Collector." 

7 


INTRODUCTION 


long  in  the  habit  of  taking  impressions  from  their 
engravings  on  silver  plates  before  filling  them  with 
the  deep  black  metallic  alloy  known  as  niello.  This 
was  done  at  first  with  fine  earth  and  sulphur,  but 
it  was  found  that  proofs  could  be  taken  upon 
dampened  paper,  and  this  ultimately  led  to  the 
invention  and  use  of  metal  plates  for  producing 
prints.  Like  every  other  art,  it  was  in  some  measure 
an  evolution  and  in  part,  no  doubt,  an  accidental 
discovery,  and  Finiguerra  appears  to  have  been  the 
fortunate  one  who  was  first  able  to  demonstrate 
its  utility. 

Germany  disputes  with  Italy  its  claim  to  be  the 
birthplace  of  chalcography,  and  points  with  the 
finger  of  pride  to  the  indisputable  fact  that  the  cop- 
per-plate as  well  as  the  typographic  press  was 
first  in  use  within  her  borders.  The  "ingenious 
and  laborious  "  Baron  Heinecken  is  willing  to  divide 
the  honors,  and  suggests  that,  owing  to  the  lack  of 
intercommunication  between  the  two  countries,  the 
art  of  engraving  might  have  been  long  practiced  in 
Germany  and  unknown  in  Italy,  and  that  Finiguerra 
might  have  discovered  the  Art  without  knowing 
that  it  had  already  been  discovered  in  Germany. 

8 


INTRODUCTION 


The  Abbe  Zani,  who  unearthed  the  unique  proof  of 
the  first  engraving  known  to  have  been  printed  by 
Maso  Finiguerra,  in  1452,*  and  the  well-known  au- 
thorities on  ancient  prints,  Ottley  and  Bartsch,t  how- 
ever, concede  the  priority  of  discovery  to  the  Italians. 

The  earliest  copper-plate  engravings  extant  of 
Teutonic  origin  are  the  productions  of  two  anony- 
mous artists,  known  as  the  Masters  of  1464,  and 
1466  and  1467,"  but  the  first  engraver  to  exert  a 
marked  influence  upon  the  Art  was  Martin  Schoen, 
or  Schongauer  (born  circa  1420,  probably  at  Augs- 
burg), who  is  by  common  consent  the  acknowl- 
edged father  of  the  German  school.  His  contem- 
porary, Michael  Wohlgemuth,  who  may  or  may  not 
have  practiced  the  art  of  engraving  on  copper,  en- 
joys the  all  sufficient  distinction  that  he  was  the 
master,  in  painting,  of  Albert  Durer,  the  incompar- 
able burinist,  who  carried  engraving  to  a  "per- 
fection which  has  since  been  hardly  surpassed," 

*  The  first  impression  upon  paper  of  an  engraving  upon  metal 
— a  proof  of  the  Paix  niellee  in  1452  by  Maso  Finiguerra — was 
discovered  at  Paris  in  the  Bibliotheque  dti  Roi  in  1 797  by  the  Abbe 
Pierre  Zani.    Duchesne  Aine,  "  Essai  sur  les  Nielles/'  Paris,  1826. 

f  Author  of  "  Le  Peintre  Graveur"and  the  first  to  apply  the 
word  niello  to  a  print  from  a  niello  engraving. 

9 


INTRODUCTION 


and  brought  to  the  old  Burgher  city  of  Nuremberg 
never-fading  glory  and  renown.  Wohlgemuth 
was  born  at  Nuremberg  in  1434.  In  conjunction 
with  William  PleydenwurfT  he  designed  and  super- 
intended the  engraving  of  the  wood-cuts  for  the 
Nuremberg  Chronicle,  the  great  picture  book  of 
the  middle  ages,  printed  by  Antony  Koburger  in 
1493. 

The  new-born  Art  traveled  in  leisurely  fashion 
to  Great  Britain  and  France,  and  the  first  English 
copper-plate  engraver  of  whom  there  is  an  authen- 
tic account,  according  to  the  engraver  and  antiquary 
George  Vertue,  was  Thomas  Geminus  or  Geminie, 
a  printer,  publisher,  and  philomath,  as  well  as  an 
engraver,  in  the  time  of  Henry  VIII,  who  dwelt  in 
Blackfriars,  London,  whence  he  published  "Prog- 
nostications of  the  weather  and  Phaenomena  of 
the  heavens  with  cuts."  The  earliest  engravings 
ascribed  to  him — "Illustrations  to  a  translation  of 
Vesalius'  Anatomy" — are  dated  1545,  forty  years 
after  Durer  produced  his  "Adam  and  Eve." 

The  first  book  printed  in  England  with  copper- 
plate illustrations  was  Richard  Jonas'  "  Byrth  of 
Mankynde, "  published  by  Thomas  Raynalde  in  1 540, 

10 


INTRODUCTION 

and  dedicated  to  Catherine  Howard,  fifth  wife  of 
Henry  VIII. 

The  earliest  French  publication  in  which  cop- 
per-plates appear  is  said  to  be  a  translation  of  Bern- 
hard  de  Breydenbach's  celebrated  account  of  his  pil- 
grimage to  Jerusalem,*  entitled  **Des  Sainctes 
peregrinations  de  Jerusalem  et  des  lieux  circonvois- 
ins,  Lyons,  1488,"  but  the  illustrations  it  contains 
were  probably  engraved  in  Germany,  and  the  first 
French  engraver  deemed  worthy  of  mention  by 
writers  upon  the  subject  was  Jean  Duvet,  sometimes 
called  the  Master  of  the  Unicorn,  who  was  born  at 
Langres,  some  assert  in  1485,  others  15 10.  Duvet 
or  Danet  was  a  goldsmith  by  profession — a  vocation 
which  has  proved  a  natural  and  very  customary 
stepping-stone  to  the  practice  of  chalcography,  ever 
since  it  first  led,  as  we  have  seen,  to  the  discovery 
of  the  Art.  Duvet  engraved  the  works  of  Jean 
Cousin,  who  may  be  regarded,  says  Bryan,  in  his 
Dictionary  of  Painters  and  Engravers,"  as  the 
founder  of  the  French  School  of  Painting.    His  first 

*  For  a  full  description  of  this  remarkable  work,  which  is  prob- 
ably the  first  book  of  travels  ever  printed,  see  Dibdin's  "  Bibliotheca 
Spenceriana."    Vol.  Ill,  page  216. 

«3 


INTRODUCTION 

occupation  was  glass  painting,  and  the  windows 
of  the  choir  of  the  Church  of  St.  Gervais  in  Paris 
are  considered  his  masterpieces. 

Thus  it  appears  that  this  art  for  the  "  multiplica- 
tion of  drawings  "  which  brought  to  the  artist  in  his 
studio  a  measure  of  the  marvelous  reproductive 
power  which  the  Printing  Press  bestowed  upon  the 
author  and  the  scribe,  flourished  for  little  more  than 
four  hundred  years.  The  middle  of  the  fifteenth 
century  witnessed  its  rise,  the  closing  years  of  the 
nineteenth  its  decline  and  fall. 

For  the  ready  reference  of  those  who  may  not 
have  a  special  knowledge  of  the  technique  and 
nomenclature  of  this  resourceful  reproductive  art, 
we  append  to  these  few  words  of  introduction  a 
description,  elementary  in  character  and  necessarily 
brief  and  concise,  of  the  principal  methods  by 
which  prints  are  produced  from  engraved  metal 
surfaces,  and  also  give  the  English  terms  used  to 
denote  the  different  styles  of  engraving  and  their 
equivalents  in  French  as  they  have  become  in  a 
measure  interchangeable  in  artistical  parlance. 

Line  engraving — g ravure  au  burin.  Copper- 
plate engraving — gravure  entaille  douce. 

M 


INTRODUCTION 


This  is  preeminently  the  first  and  the  most  laborious 
and  costly  method  of  engraving  on  metal,  and 
requires  the  exercise  of  the  greatest  patience  and 
highest  mechanical  skill.  It  may  be  and  generally 
is  begun  by  the  etching  process,  but  when  this  is 
not  employed  the  plate  of  silver,  copper  or  steel  (the 
*'age  of  steel"  in  engraving,  dates  only  from  about 
the  year  1823)  is  first  given  a  surface  which  is  per- 
fectly smooth  and  highly  polished.  It  is  then  heated 
and  rubbed  over  with  wax  so  that  when  cooled  it 
is  coated  with  a  white  film.  When  the  engraving 
was  to  be  of  smaller  dimensions  than  the  picture 
of  which  it  was  to  be  a  translation,  the  reduction 
was  made — before  the  days  of  photography,  by 
a  complicated  method  of  corresponding  squares. 
When  the  engraving  is  of  the  same  size  as  the 
original  the  task  is  much  simplified.  A  very  exact 
tracing,  "CALauE,  "  of  the  picture  to  be  copied  is 
made  with  a  sharp  point  upon  **papier-glace,"  a 
composition  of  gelatine.  This  tracing  is  filled  with 
black  lead  or  red  chalk,  then  laid,  face  down,  upon 
the  plate  and  pressed  or  rubbed  with  the  finger 
until  a  counter  impression  upon  the  prepared  surface 
of  the  plate  is  obtained.    The  engraver  goes  over 

«5 


INTRODUCTION 


with  his  steel  point,  the  lines  of  the  drawing  thus 
transferred,  exerting  sufficient  pressure  to  penetrate 
the  wax  and  leave  the  design  faintly  traced  upon 
the  metal  beneath,  or  the  outlines  of  the  design  may 
be  marked  out  by  innumerable  points  or  pin  holes. 
This  accomplished,  the  wax  is  melted  off"  the  plate, 
the  surface  cleaned,  and  the  engraver  proceeds  with 
the  burin  or  graver  (a  tool  which  has  a  lozenge- 
shaped  point  and  makes  an  angular  incision)  to 
complete  the  engraving.  The  burin  is  handled  in 
various  ways,  according  to  the  nature  of  the  object 
the  engraver  desires  to  imitate,  by  cross-hatchings, 
undulating  or  straight  lines,  and  dots  in  the  spaces 
formed  by  the  intersection  of  these  lines.  Flat  tints, 
such  as  a  cloudless  sky  or  a  calm  sheet  of  water, 
may  be  put  in  with  a  ruling  machine — a  compara- 
tively modern  invention,  not  much  in  use  before  the 
present  century — which  engraves  parallel  lines  either 
straight  or  curved,  as  may  be  desired.  Usually 
"the  lines  are  cut  through  an  etching  ground,  and 
bitten  to  the  required  depth  with  acid." 

Mr.  T.  H.  Fielding,  in  his  very  useful  work  on 
the  "  Arts  of  Engraving  "  gives  the  following  minute 
instructions  for  handling  the  burin  in  line  engraving: 

16 


INTRODUCTION 


"In  engraving  cloths  of  different  kinds,  linen 
should  be  done  with  finer  and  closer  lines  than  other 
sorts  and  be  executed  with  single  strokes.  Woolen 
cloth  should  be  engraved  wide  in  proportion  to  the 
coarseness  or  fineness  of  the  stuff,  and  when  the 
strokes  are  crossed  the  second  should  be  smaller 
than  the  first,  and  the  third  than  the  second.  Shin- 
ing stuffs,  which  are  generally  of  silk  or  satin,  and 
which  produce  flat  and  broken  folds,  should  be  en- 
graved more  hard  and  more  straight  than  others, 
with  one  or  two  strokes  as  their  colors  are  bright  or 
otherwise;  and  between  the  first  course  of  lines  other 
smaller  ones  must  be  occasionally  introduced, 
which  is  called  interlining.  Velvet  and  plush  are 
expressed  in  the  same  manner,  and  should  always 
be  interlined.  Metals,  as  armor,  etc.,  are  also  rep- 
resented by  interlacing,  or  by  clear  single  strokes. 
In  architecture,  the  strokes  which  form  the  rounding 
of  objects  should  tend  to  the  point  of  sight,  and 
when  whole  columns  occur,  it  is  proper  to  produce 
the  effect  as  much  as  possible  by  perpendicular 
strokes.  If  a  cross  stroke  is  put,  it  should  be  at 
right  angles,  and  wider  and  thinner  than  the  first 
stroke.    The  strokes  ought  to  be  frequently  discon- 


'7 


From  Rogers'  Poems,  Page  95.— Cadell's  Edition,  London,  1834. 

tinued  and  broken  for  sharp  and  craggy  objects. 
Objects  that  are  distant,  towards  the  horizon,  should 
be  kept  very  tender.  Waters  that  are  calm  and  still 
are  best  represented  by  strokes  that  are  straight  and 
parallel  to  the  horizon,  interlined  with  those  that  are 
finer,  omitting  such  places  as  in  consequence  of 
gleams  of  light  exhibit  the  shining  appearance  of  the 
water;  and  the  forms  of  objects  reflected  upon  the 
water  at  a  small  distance  from  it,  or  on  the  banks  of 

18 


INTRODUCTION 

the  water,  are  expressed  by  the  same  strokes  re- 
touched more  strongly  or  faintly  as  occasion  may 
require,  and  even  by  some  that  are  perpendicular. 
For  agitated  waters,  as  the  waves  of  the  sea,  the 
first  strokes  should  follow  the  figure  of  the  waves, 
and  may  be  interlined,  and  the  cross  strokes  ought 
to  be  very  lozenge.  In  cascades  the  strokes  should 
follow  the  fall  and  be  interlined.  In  engraving 
clouds,  the  graver  should  sport  where  they  appear 
thick  and  agitated,  in  turning  every  way  according 
to  their  form  and  agitation.  If  the  clouds  are  dark 
so  that  two  strokes  are  necessary,  they  should  be 
crossed  more  lozenge  than  the  figures,  and  the 
second  strokes  should  be  rather  wider  than  the  first. 
The  flat  clouds  that  are  lost  insensibly  in  the  clear 
sky  should  be  made  by  strokes  parallel  to  the  horizon 
and  a  little  waving:  if  second  strokes  are  required 
they  should  be  more  or  less  lozenge,  and  when  they 
are  brought  to  the  extremity  the  hand  should  be  so 
lightened  that  they  may  form  no  outline.  The  flat 
and  clear  sky  is  represented  by  parallel  and  straight 
strokes." 

*Mt  is  especially  in  their  exquisite  skies,"  says 
Philip  Gilbert  Hamerton,  "that  the  line  engravers 


'9 


INT  RODUCTION 


are  beyond  rivalry  by  etchers."  All  etched  skies 
that  he  had  seen,  not  excepting  the  best  of  Haden 
and  Rembrandt  and  even  Claude,  are  either  rude  or 
simple  in  comparison  with  such  skies  as  the  best 
in  Rogers'  Poems  (considered  by  critics  as  the 
''high  water  mark  in  human  attainment"),  and 
Plates  63,  66  and  67  in  the  fifth  volume  of  "  Modern 
Painters."  "A  skillful  etcher  such  as  Haden  or 
Meryon  may  give  very  intelligible  hints  of  the 
mental  emotion  felt  by  him  in  the  presence  of  some 
splendid  natural  sky,  but  he  cannot  render  the  sky 
itself,  the  evanescent  delicacy  of  the  cloud-forms, 
their  melting  imperceptible  gradations.  But  the 
engravers  have  truly  made  plates  of  copper  yield 
images  as  closely  resembling  skies  as  the  absence  of 
color  and  feebleness  of  art's  light  may  admit  of ; 
they  have  done  more  than  suggest,  they  have  repre- 
sented." 

Stipple — AU  POiNTiLLE.  This  is  a  very  direct 
and  comparatively  easy  process,  which  fact  may  in 
a  measure  account  for  its  early  and  widespread 
popularity.  The  outline  of  the  engraving  is  some- 
times dotted  in  with  a  punch  and  mallet,  but  the 
dots  are  more  often  made  with  a  needle  through 

20 


INTRODUCTION 


etching  ground  and  afterwards  increased  in  size 
with  the  graver  as  the  shading  requires — and  they 
are  quite  as  often  executed  entirely  with  the  graver, 
frequently  with  minute  cuts  in  different  groupings. 
Stipple  engraving  is  said  to  have  been  invented  by 
Bylaert,  a  painter  and  engraver  of  Leyden,  although 
dotting  is  to  be  seen  in  the  works  of  Albert  Diirer 
and  other  early  copper-plate  engravers.  It  was  a 
favorite  style  of  engraving  with  that  celebrated  and 
prolific  Italian  artist  Francesco  Bartolozzi,  who  car- 
ried it  to  great  perfection,  and  the  style  was  also 
adopted  by  a  number  of  our  own  engravers  early  in 
this  century,  many  of  whose  portraits  are  engraved 
in  either  pure  stipple  or  in  line  and  stipple.  This 
manner,  as  well  as  that  of  its  twin  brother  art, 
Chalk  engraving,* — gravure  en  maniere  de 
CRAYON,  was  introduced  into  England  by  Wil- 
liam Wynne  Ryland,  a  pupil  of  the  celebrated 
French  artists  Simon  Francis  Ravenet  and  Fran- 
cis Boucher,  and  also  of  Jacques  Philip  Le  Bas, 

*  Chalk  engraving  is  merely  the  imitation  of  chalk  drawings  by 
means  of  stipple  engraving.  The  grain  which  the  chalk  leaves  on 
the  paper  is  imitated  by  irregular  dots  of  varied  forms  and  sizes,  and 
the  whole  process  is  the  same  as  stipple  engraving. — Fielding's 
"  Art  of  Engraving." 

23 


INTRODUCTION 


in  whose  atelier  in  Paris  he  must  have  been  a 
camarade  d'ecole  of  Etienne  Ficquet,  the  French 
engraver  in  miniature,  who  is  to  claim  our  attention 
hereafter. 

Etching — GRAVURE  A  l'eau  forte,  a  method 
of  engraving  first  practiced  in  the  early  part  of  the 
sixteenth  century,  in  which  the  lines  are  produced 
by  the  action  of  a  mordant  on  steel,  zinc,  iron  or 
copper,  although  generally  the  latter  material  is  used. 
The  plate  is  covered  with  a  varnish  technically 
called  a  ground,  made  of  asphaltum,  wax  and  pitch, 
evenly  blackened  with  candle  smoke.  The  design 
is  drawn  with  steel  needles,  varying  in  size,  so  as 
to  yield  broader  or  fainter  lines,  which  cut  through 
the  varnish  and  leave  the  plate  bare  where  the  lines 
have  been  traced.  Acid  is  then  poured  on  the  plate 
and  allowed  to  remain  until  it  has  bitten  the  parts 
exposed  to  its  action  to  the  requisite  depth.  The 
mordant  usually  employed  in  etching  on  copper  is 
nitric  acid — aq.ua  fort  is,  but  a  so-called  Dutch 
mordant  composed  of  muriatic  acid  and  chlorate  of 
potash  is  also  used.  As  for  the  needle,  anything, 
says  Hamerton,  in  the  shape  of  a  pencil  with  a 
hard  point  will  do  for  an  etching  needle,  and 

24 


'  Landscape  with  Willows." — Etching  by  Charles  Jacques. 


Turner,  we  are  told,  used  the  prong  of  an  old  steel 
fork. 

A  line  engraving,  it  has  been  said  with  truth, 
personates  the  art  in  her  full  attire  of  ceremony  and 
state,  while  an  etching  shows  art  at  her  ease — art  in 
deshabille,  perhaps,  but  never  a  slattern,  the  author 
of  the  above  sentiment  is  careful  to  add. 

Dry  Point — A  la  pointe  seche.  In  this 
simple  process,  which  is  but  one  remove  from  draw- 
ing on  paper  with  a  pencil,  the  design  is  scratched 
directly  on  the  bare  copper  with  a  tool  similar  to  an 
etching  needle.  The  bur  or  "  barbe  "  raised  by  the 
cutting  is  either  left  undisturbed  to  catch  the  print- 
ing ink  and  produce  an  effect  which  resembles  mez- 

25 


INTRODUCTION 


zotint — and  "dry  point  "  has  been  called  mezzotint 
in  line— or  it  is  removed  with  a  burnisher  and  the 
incised  line  left  to  receive  the  ink  as  in  the  ordinary 
etching  process  we  have  just  described.  As  the 
raised  lines  are  but  very  delicate  wiry  ridges  of  cop- 
per they  speedily  wear  away,  or,  as  Georges  Du- 
plessis  observes  in  his  **Histoire  de  la  Gravure," 
"  promptly  disappear,"  and  very  few  good  impres- 
sions— not  more  than  twenty-five  or  thirty  at  the 
most — can  be  taken  from  a  "dry  point"  in  which 
the  effect  depends  upon  the  bur.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  very  earliest  impressions  maybe  overladen 
with  bur.  "Dry  point"  is  frequently  employed  as 
an  auxiliary  to  etching  with  acid,  and  is  generally 
spoken  of  as  etching,  but  strictly  speaking  it  is 
engraving. 

The  strong  points  of  etching  in  comparison  with 
other  arts,  writes  Mr.  Hamerton  in  his  "  Etching  and 
Etchers,"  are  its  great  freedom,  precision  and  power. 
Its  weak  points  may  be  reduced  to  a  single  head. 
The  accurate  subdivision  of  delicate  tones,  or,  in 
one  word,  perfect  tonality,  is  very  difficult  in  etch- 
ing; so  that  perfect  modeling  is  very  rare  in  the 
Art,  and  the  true  representation  of  skies,  which 

26 


"The  Towing  Path."— Dry  Point  by  Francis  Seymour  Haden. 

depends  on  the  most  delicate  discrimination  of  these 
values,  still  rarer.  For  the  whole  art  of  etching  the 
reader  is  referred  to  the  well-known  treatise  above 
quoted ;  we  shall  add  here  only  a  few  lines  from 
Mr.  Hamerton's  work  descriptive  of  the  process 
known  as  soft  ground  etching. 

"The  common  etching  ground  is  softened  by  the 
addition  of  tallow.  It  is  then  covered  with  a  sheet 
of  very  thin  paper  upon  which  the  design  is  drawn 
with  a  lead  pencil.  When  the  paper  is  removed  it 
takes  up  with  it  a  certain  quantity  of  the  ground, 
leaving  the  copper  nearly  bare  in  the  lines,  the  paper 
having  caused  it  to  be  removed  partly,  and  partly 

27 


INTRODUCTION 

left  in  a  granulated  way.  The  plate  is  then  bitten 
and  stopped  out  in  the  ordinary  manner,  and  on 
taking  a  proof  it  will  be  found,  if  the  work  has  been 
properly  done,  that  the  impression  strongly  resem- 
bles the  pencil  drawing." 

Mezzotint — gravure  a  la  maniere  noire, 
or  EN  DEMi-TEiNTE.  This  and  pure  line  engrav- 
ing are  the  aristocrats  of  chalcography.  A  pure  mez- 
zotint is  moreover  the  nearest  approach  to  nature  of 
any  of  the  products  of  the  Arts  of  engraving,  inas- 
much as  it  presents  to  the  eye  masses  of  light  and 
shade,  forms  without  lines.  No  other  art  but  that  of 
painting  can  render  so  faithfully  as  does  a  mezzotint 
the  glow  on  the  cheek  of  beauty,  the  soft  texture, 
the  sheen,  and  the  graceful  folds  of  a  lady's  gown 
or  the  brilliant  lustre  of  the  armor  of  her  belted 
and  **veray  parfit  gentil  knight."  An  aquatint 
comes  next,  and  is  a  close  second  in  the  depiction 
of  landscapes,  but  in  "figures  "  and  "  interiors  "  it  is 
far  and  away  surpassed  by  the  mezzotint. 

The  ground,  so  called,  in  a  mezzotint  is  laid 
with  an  instrument  known  as  a  cradle  or  rocker, 
"BERCEAU,"  which  ends  in  a  row  of  fine  points 
which  are  forced  into  the  plate  by  rocking  back  and 

28 


INTRODUCTION 


forth,  producing  no  lines,  but  a  continuous  mat  or 
bur,  which  when  complete  would  give,  if  an  im- 
pression were  taken  from  the  plate  in  this  state,  a 
sheet  of  the  deepest  black.  The  scraper — r  a  c  l  o  i  r — 
removes  this  bur  to  a  greater  or  less  degree  and  gives 
the  various  tones  required  in  the  shading,  and  the 
burnisher*  is  used  on  the  parts  which  are  to  show 
as  white — the  high  lights  of  the  engraving.  The 
bur  or  ground  is  left  nearly  or  quite  undisturbed  in 
the  darkest  shadows,  and  completely  removed  in 
the  highest  lights. 

*  The  processes  of  burnishing  and  polishing  and  their  different 
effects  upon  a  plate — one  non-injurious,  and  the  other  gradually 
destructive — are  thus  stated  by  Mr.  E.  Davis  French,  who  has  kindly 
given  the  writer  the  benefit  of  his  practical  knowledge  of  the  Art  of 
Engraving  :  "  Burnishing  is  done  by  rubbing  the  surface  of  a  metal 
with  a  harder  substance  which  is  perfectly  smooth  and  bright,  and 
thus  forcing  down  all  the  little  inequalities  of  the  metal  to  a  surface 
as  smooth  as  that  which  is  rubbed  against  it.  Nothing  of  the  metal 
is  removed  ;  the  particles  which  compose  its  surface  are  simply 
forced  closer  together.  Polishing  is  effected  by  rubbing  the  metal 
with  some  fine  powder,  like  flour  of  emery,  tripoli,  or  rouge,  which 
grinds  down  the  metal  to  smoothness  by  taking  away  the  surface 
more  or  less.  In  printing,  the  plate  is  polished  with  whiting  on  the 
palm  of  the  hand.  It  is  this,  together  with  the  carbon  in  the  ink, 
which  gradually  wears  out  a  plate,  and  before  the  invention  of  steel- 
facing,  materially  limited  the  number  of  good  impressions  which  a 
copper-plate  was  capable  of  yielding." 

31 


INTR  ODUCTION 


Mezzotintoing  produces  rich,  velvety  and  per- 
fectly uniform  tones,  ranging  from  intense  black  to 
brilliant  white,  and  shows,  where  desired,  the  sharp- 
est contrasts  between  these  two  extremes.  The 
defect  in  the  process,  if  it  be  one,  is  that  it  does  not 
admit  of  sharp  and  clear  delineation  of  forms;  hence 
in  modern  mezzotintoing  the  outlines  are  some- 
times strongly  etched  in  before  the  cradle  is  used  and 
texture  is  given  to  the  plate  with  the  dry  point. 
Formerly  plates  were  finished  in  pure  mezzotint  and 
most  beautiful  results  obtained — pictures  which  are 
to  this  day  eagerly  sought  for  by  connoisseurs, 
and  are  among  the  highest-priced  products  of  the 
engraver's  Art. 

The  introduction  of  this  style  of  engraving  has 
been  erroneously  ascribed  to  Prince  Rupert,*  but  it 
was  in  reality  invented  in  1643  by  Ludwig  von 
Siegen,  a  lieutenant-colonel  in  the  service  of  the 
Landgrave  of  Hesse,  and  is  said  to  have  been  sug- 

*  Robert  de  Baviere,  born  at  Prague,  1619,  was  a  nephew  of 
Charles  I  of  England,  his  mother,  Elizabeth,  eldest  daughter  of 
James  1,  having  married  Frederick  V,  Elector  Palatine  and  King  of 
Bohemia.  Prince  Rupert  passed  much  of  his  life  as  a  soldier  and 
sailor  in  England,  and  fought  for  the  King  at  Marston  Moor.  He 
died  in  London  in  1682. 


32 


INTRODUCTION 


gested  by  the  rust  on  a  weapon  a  soldier  was  clean- 
ing. Mezzotint  engraving  was  carried  to  the  high- 
est degree  of  perfection  in  England,  where,  imme- 
diately upon  its  introduction,  it  became  exceedingly 
popular,  as  we  learn  from  the  diary  of  John 
Evelyn: 

"March  13th,  1660. 

"This  afternoon  Prince  Rupert  shew'd  me  with 
his  owne  hands  ye  new  way  of  graving  call'd 
MEZZOTiNTO,  which  afterwards  by  his  permission 
I  published  in  my  *  History  of  Chalcography.'  This 
set  so  many  artists  on  worke,  that  they  soon  ar- 
rived to  yt  perfection  it  is  since  come,  emulating  the 
tenderest  miniatures." 

The  pictures  made  by  this  process  are,  as  we 
have  already  stated,  very  soft  and  mellow;  but,  like 
a  dry-point  etching  with  the  bur  left  on,  they  soon 
wear  away  and  lose  their  brilliant  chiaro-oscuro 
effects;  it  is  therefore  absolutely  necessary  to  secure 
early  states  of  a  mezzotintoed  plate.  It  is  reckoned, 
says  W.  G.  Rawlinson  in  his  Description  and  Cata- 
logue of  Turner's  "Liber  Studiorum,"  that  by  the 
time  twenty-five  to  thirty  impressions  have  been 
taken  from  a  mezzotint  copper-plate,  much  of  its 

35 


INTRODUCTION 


original  effect  will  usually  have  been  sensibly  lost, 
from  a  double  cause — the  wearing  down  of  the 
minute  raised  particles  of  the  copper  from  the  fric- 
tion necessary  in  cleaning  the  plate  after  each  im- 
pression is  taken,  and  the  roughening  of  the  burn- 
ished surfaces  ;  the  darks  are  thus  lessened  in 
intensity  and  the  lights  lose  their  brilliancy,  and 
the  whole  balance  of  the  picture  is  disturbed.  There 
is,  however,  great  variation  in  copper-plates,  owing 
to  different  degrees  of  hardness  in  the  metal  and  the 
care  exercised  in  the  printing. 

Aquatint — AauATiNTE.  gravure  en  mani- 
ERE  DE  LAVis.  An  etching  process  by  which 
prints  imitating  the  broad,  flat  effects  of  India  ink, 
bistre,  or  sepia  drawings  are  produced.  The  prin- 
cipal distinction  between  this  method  and  that  of 
etching  "a  I'eau  forte  pur"  is  that  spaces  are  bitten 
as  well  as  lines. 

After  the  design  has  been  lightly  etched,  pow- 
dered rosin  is  sifted  upon  the  plate,  which  is  heated 
slightly  so  that  the  particles  of  rosin  may  adhere. 
This  is  the  old-time  ''dry"  process.  In  the  liquid 
process  a  resinous  gum  is  dissolved  in  spirits  of 
wine  and  poured  upon  the  plate.  The  alcohol  evap- 

36 


"  House  at  shotery,  in  which  Ann  Hathaway,  the  Wife  of  Shakespere, 
RESIDED."— Aquatint,  after  Ireland. 

orates,  and  leaves  the  rosin  spread  over  the  plate 
in  minute  grains.  Acid  is  then  poured  gently  but 
freely  over  it,  and  attacks  the  copper  surface 
through  the  imperceptible  interstices  of  the  rosin, 
producing  the  effect  of  a  wash  of  color.  Aquatinting 
(as  also  printing  in  colors)  is  said  by  Jansen  to  have 
been  invented  in  1660  by  Hercule  Zegers,  a  painter 
of  Utrecht,  a  cotemporary  of  Paul  Potter  and  pupil  of 
Rembrandt.  It  was  practiced  by  the  French  Abbe 
R.  de  St.  Non,  an  amateur  engraver  in  the  eighteenth 
century,  and  was  perfected  by  Jean  Baptiste  le  Prince 
( 1 733-1 781).    It  was  introduced  into  England  by 

37 


INTRODUCTION 


the  Father  of  Water  Color  Art — as  he  has  been  called 
— Paul  Sandby  (1723- 1809).  The  series  of  landscape 
plates  which  Sandby  engraved  in  aquatint  after  his 
own  drawings,  attracted  the  attention  of  Turner, 
and  the  first  plate  for  the  "  Liber  Studiorum  "  was 
engraved  in  this  manner,  but  a  quarrel  with  F.  C. 
Lewis,  his  aquatint  engraver,  resulted  in  the  adop- 
tion by  Turner  of  the  mezzotint  method. 

Aquatinting  is  a  beautiful  but  difficult  process  of 
engraving,  invented,  some  one  has  said,  for  the 
"torment  of  man."  It  was  much  in  vogue  for  a 
time  in  the  early  part  of  this  century,  but  it  has 
never  been  so  extensively  practiced  as  any  one  of 
the  other  styles  of  engraving  we  have  passed  in  re- 
view. 

Colored  prints  may  be  obtained  from  a  copper- 
plate engraving  by  applying  with  the  finger,  a  brush, 
or  a  rag,  inks  of  the  desired  tints  to  the  different 
parts  of  the  plate  (see  page  4),  but  it  becomes  a 
tedious  and  expensive  operation  when  an  attempt 
is  made  to  use  more  than  two  colors.  Colored 
prints  are  also  produced  by  the  use  of  four  or  five 
plates  from  which  are  printed  in  succession  a  black 
(or  bistre)  and  the  three  colors,  red,  blue  and  yel- 

58 


Paul  Sandby,  Esa-,  F.  R.  A. — Stipple  engraving  by  Pollard. 


low.  The  difficulty  in  this  process  is  to  register  the 
plates  by  means  of  points  in  the  margin,  so  that  they 
will  print  with  the  extreme  exactness  required. 

Xylography — g ravure  en  taille  de  bois. 
The  elder  sister  of  Chalcography.  The  art  which  a 
German,  Albert  Durer,  raised  to  eminence,  and  an 
Englishman,  Thomas  Bewick,  restored  after  its  de- 
cline in  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries. 

39 


INTRODUCTION 


There  is  but  one  method  of  engraving  on  wood* 
and  it  is  directly  the  reverse  of  engraving  on  metal; 
one  is  a  cameo,  the  other  an  intaglio.  In  a  wood 
engraving  the  design  is  cut  in  relief;  whereas  in  a 
metal  engraving  it  is  sunk  in  incised  lines.  The 
impression  from  a  wood  engraving  is  procured  by 
inking  the  raised  surfaces  which  form  the  design, 
and  the  ink  must  be  thicker  than  that  employed  in 
copper-  or  steel  plate  printing,  in  order  that  it  may 
lie  upon  the  surface  of  the  block  without  filling  up 
the  hollows.  Printing  from  wood  blocks  is  similar 
to  printing  from  types  and  is  generally  done  simul- 
taneously, as  woodcuts  are  used  principally  for 
illustrations  in  the  body  of  a  printed  text.  In  a  metal 
engraving  the  incised  lines  are  filled  with  ink:  the 
plate  is  then  cleaned  and  polished,  and  this  slow 
and  careful  manipulation  must  be  repeated  after  each 
impression  is  taken.  It  will  thus  be  seen  that  printing 
from  a  copper-  or  steel  plate  is  a  much  more  tedious 
operation  and  requires  greater  care  and  dexterity 
than  printing  from  a  wood  block.    The  durability 

*  Sycamore  and  pear  are  the  woods  used  for  large,  coarse  cuts, 
and  boxwood  which  has  been  seasoned  from  one  to  two  years  for 
the  finer  engravings. 


40 


INT  RODUCTION 


of  a  woodcut  is  vastly  greater  than  that  of  any  form 
of  copper-  or  steel  plate  engraving.  Jansen,  author 
of  an  "  Essai  sur  I'Origine  de  la  Gravure, "  Paris,  1 808, 
a  standard  work  which  we  have  already  quoted, states 
that  a  plate  engraved  in  line,  planche  gravee 
A  u  BURIN,  should  give,  when  the  engraving  is  not 
very  fine,  from  seven  to  eight  hundred  good  impres- 
sions, according  to  the  quality  of  the  copper.  An 
etching,  planche  gravee  a  l'eau  forte, 
will  furnish  little  more  than  two  hundred  good  proofs, 
while  from  a  wood  engraving  an  hundred  thousand 
impressions  may  be  taken;  and  he  quotes  a  state- 
ment of  M.  Papillon  in  his  "Traite  de  la  Gravure  en 
Bois"  (which  is  worthy  of  Baron  Munchausen) : 
that  one  million  impressions  had  been  taken  from  a 
wood  block  and  it  was  still  fit  for  service.  It  must 
have  been  one  of  the  planks  "  which  the  fifteenth- 
century  wood-cutters  carved  with  a  knife  and  chisel. 

Lithography — lithographie  is  a  chemical 
and  somewhat  involved  process  invented  about  one 
hundred  years  ago  by  a  Bavarian,  Alois  Senefelder, 
the  son  of  an  actor  at  the  Theatre  Royal  at  Munich, 
and  depends  mainly  upon  the  fact  that  oil  and  water 
will  not  mix.  The  design  is  drawn  upon  a  compact 

4« 


INTRODUCTION 


fine-grained  stone  found  principally  in  Bavaria,  with 
a  crayon  which  contains  grease.  The  lithographic 
ink  adheres  to  the  design  drawn  with  this  prepared 
pencil,  but  is  repelled  from  the  wetted  parts  of 
the  stone  not  covered  by  it.  Lithographic  chalk  is 
made  of  common  soap,  tallow,  virgin  wax,  shellac 
and  lampblack,  and  lithographic  ink  is  composed  of 
the  same  ingredients,  but  combined  in  slightly  dif- 
ferent proportions. 

These  are  the  principal  methods  employed  up  to 
the  middle  of  this  century  for  producing  prints  from 
engravings  on  metal,  stone  and  wood.  With  two 
exceptions — namely,  etching  and  lithography — they 
have  fallen,  even  with  the  aid  of  photogenic  draw- 
ing, into  well-nigh  complete  disuse,  and  chalcog- 
raphy without  photography  as  an  intermediary, 
may  be  said,  without  fear  of  contradiction,  to  be  a 
lost  art,  '*mort  dans  les  bras  du  commerce." 


42 


A  TRIO  OF 

EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

FRENCH    ENGRAVERS  OF 
PORTRAITS 
IN  MINIATURE 


A  TRIO  OF 

EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

FRENCH    ENGRAVERS  OF 
PORTRAITS 
IN  MINIATURE 


"  Your  old  men  shall  dream 
dreams,  and  your  young  men 
shall  see  visions,"  saith  the 
prophet  Joel,  and  from  that 
olden  time  to  this,  the  world 
has  witnessed  the  continual 
fulfillment  of  this  biblical  pre- 
diction— but  most  of  the 
world's  dreamers  never  put 

47 


A    TRIO    OF    FRENCH  ENGRAVERS 

forth  their  dreams  or  disclose  their  visions  for  lack 
of  the  gift  of  expression.  Few  of  the  ethereal 
forms  which  people  the  human  fancy  ever  troop 
across  the  border  of  the  dream  land  of  their 
birth,  and  so  every  age  has  its  share  of  mute,  in- 
glorious Miltons"  and  voiceless  singers  who  "die," 
— alas! — ''with  all  their  music  in  them." 

This  power  of  expression  depends  in  a  measure 
upon  physical  conditions.  It  will  be  conceded  that 
a  man  who  is  afflicted  with  Daltonism,  and,  like 
Charles  Meryon,  unable  to  distinguish  the  ripe  fruit 
from  the  leaves  in  a  cherry  tree  or  a  currant  bush, 
is  not  fitted  for  a  painter's  avocation,  any  more 
than  he  is  to  hold  the  throttle  of  a  railway  en- 
gine as  it  rushes  through  the  darkness  of  the  night. 
The  proposition  is  perhaps  not  quite  so  simple,  but 
we  think  equally  indisputable,  that  a  near-sighted 
man  could  never  execute  successfully  engravings  in 
the  broad  style  of  Gerard  Edelinck  and  Robert  Nan- 
teuil,  or  a  far-sighted  one  the  spirituelle  little  fig- 
ures of  Jacques  Callot  and  Sebastian  Le  Clerc,  or 
the  delicate  and  highly  finished  portraits — the  bijou- 
terie of  engraving  —  produced  by  Etienne  Fic- 
quet,  Pierre  Savart  and  Jean  Baptiste  de  Grateloup, 

48 


ETIENNE    FICaU  ET 

than  whom,  says  M.  Faucheux — author  of  the  ''Cat- 
alogue Raisonne"  of  the  works  of  these  myopic 
artists,  and  the  proponent  of  the  foregoing  proposi- 
tion— no  engraver  ever  carried  so  far  firmness  and 
delicacy  of  execution.  It  was  the  ''analogy''  of 
the  talent  of  these  three  engravers  in  miniature 
which  led  this  accomplished  critic  *'to  unite  in  one 
volume  a  description  of  their  works."  This  careful 
study  of  M.  L.  E.  Faucheux,  member  of  the  Archae- 
ological Society  of  Lorraine,  and  the  exhaustive  work 
of  Baron  Roger  Portalis  on  the  French  designers  and 
engravers  of  the  eighteenth  century,  are  the  principal 
authorities  which  have  been  consulted  by  the  writer 
in  preparing  this  monograph. 

Etienne  Ficquet  was  born  in  Paris,  September 
13,  1 7 19.  He  was  the  son  of  a  professor  of  philoso- 
phy in  the  University  of  Paris,  and  the  grandson  of  a 
goldsmith,  from  whom  he  probably  received  his  first 
artistic  bent  as  well  as  his  elementary  instruction  in 
the  art  of  copper-plate  engraving.  He  was  after- 
wards placed  under  the  tuition  of  George  Frederick 
Schmidt,  a  Prussian  engraver,  who  had  come  to 
France  to  perfect  himself  in  his  art  and  in  1742  was 

49 


A    TRIO    OF    FRENCH  ENGRAVERS 

received  into  the  Academy  at  Paris.  In  1744  Schmidt 
returned  to  his  native  land  and  was  appointed  en- 
graver to  the  king.  He  died  at  Berlin  in  1775,  after 
having  achieved  a  European  celebrity  through  his 
skill  as  an  engraver. 

After  the  departure  of  Schmidt  from  Paris,  Fic- 
quet  entered  the  atelier  of  Jacques  Philip  Le  Bas,  a 
pupil  of  Nicolas  Tardieu,  and  one  of  the  most  in- 
genious artists  of  his  time"  in  more  senses  than  one 
it  would  appear.  The  popularity  of  his  engravings 
brought  him  many  pupils  from  all  parts  of  Europe 
whose  talents  were  employed — so  the  story  runs — 
in  advancing  the  plates  which  Le  Bas  afterwards 
finished  and  published  with  his  name.  In  this 
mixed  atmosphere  of  art  and  artifice,  and  leading  a 
life  at  times,  we  are  told,  un  pen  desordonnee, 
Ficquet  continued  his  studies,  enjoying  the  intimacy 
and  forming  lasting  friendships  with  many  of  the 
most  talented  and  noted  artists  of  the  day.  Among 
his  fellow  students  were  the  two  eminent  English 
engravers,  Robert  Strange,  and  William  Wynne  Ry- 
land,  and  the  Parisian  book-illustrator  Charles  Eisen, 
whose  portrait,  prefixed  to  the  second  volume  of 
the  "  Fermiers  Generaux  "  edition  Amsterdam, 

50 


ETIENNE  FICQ.UET 

(Paris,  Barbou),  1762,  of  the  "  Contes  et  Nouvelles  " 
of  La  Fontaine,  is  one  of  the  finest  executed  by 
Ficquet.  The  plates  in  this  edition  of  La  Fontaine, 
well  known  to  all  book-collectors  as  one  of  the  most 
exquisite  of  the  livres  a  figures  du  XVlll  Steele, 
were  designed  by  Eisen  and  are  considered  his 
masterpieces.  The  cuts  de  lampe  are  by  P.  P. 
Choffard,  the  best,  in  the  opinion  of  Duplessis,  of  all 
the  French  designers  and  engravers  of  chapter-heads 
and  tail-pieces.  The  pity  of  it  is  that  so  much 
art  and  talent  was  lavished  upon  a  book  of  this 
character. 

Ficquet  never  drew  his  portraits  from  the  life, 
the  words  delineavit  ad  vivtim  are  never  found 
upon  them.  Some  were  taken  from  paintings,  nota- 
bly the  portrait  of  Madame  de  Maintenon,  which,  in 
the  opinion  of  Baron  Portalis,  is  the  most  perfect  of 
all  Ficquet's  works.  This  beautiful  engraving  was 
copied  from  the  painting  by  Pierre  Mignard,  court 
painter  of  Louis  XIV,  which  was  then  in  possession 
of  the  ladies  of  Saint  Cyr,  and  is  now  in  the  Mu- 
seum of  the  Louvre. 

The  French  engraver,  Nicolas  Ponce,  who  died 
as  recently  as  1831,  knew  Ficquet  intimately,  and 

53 


A    TRIO    OF    FRENCH  ENGRAVERS 

relates  the  following  story  in  connection  with  this 
portrait  of  Fran^oise  d'Aubigne,  Madame  de  Main- 
tenon:  Ficquet  was  commissioned  by  the  ladies  of 
Saint  Cyr  to  engrave  the  portrait  of  their  patroness 
and  the  founder  of  their  institution  after  the  paint- 
ing by  Mignard  in  their  possession.  The  plate  was 
nearly  paid  for,  but  no  portrait  appeared,  nor  was 
there  any  prospect  of  its  completion.  Finally  the 
Lady  Superior,  with  permission  of  the  Presiding 
Bishop  of  the  Province,  had  Ficquet  brought  to  the 
convent,  that  he  might  work  under  her  supervision; 
and  as  Ficquet,  it  is  said,  made  no  progress  upon 
the  picture  when  left  alone,  she  was  obliged  to  send 
her  nuns  or  pupils  to  keep  the  artist  company.  The 
picture  was  finished  and  already  several  proofs  had 
been  taken,  when  Ficquet,  who  was  not  satisfied 
with  it,  defaced  the  plate  with  two  strokes  of  his 
burin.  The  nuns  were  in  despair,  but  Ficquet  be- 
gan again,  and  this  time  the  portrait  was  completed 
to  his  satisfaction  and  "that  of  all  the  world." 
What  has  become  of  this  planche  biffee  or  the  proofs 
drawn  from  it  is  a  query  to  which  M.  Faucheux 
can  give  no  answer.  He  believes  that  they  still  ex- 
ist and  will  some  day  be  discovered. 

54 


ETIENNE  FICQUET 

Another  anecdote  narrated  by  Ponce  illustrates 
Ficquet's  lack  of  prudence  and  business  sagacity — 
those  homely  and  practical  virtues  with  which  no 
child  of  genius  was  ever  known  to  be  superabun- 
dantly endowed.  He  had  succeeded  to  an  inheri- 
tance, and  on  the  strength  of  this  accession  to  his 
fortune,  purchased  a  property  near  the  village  of 
Montmartre,  in  the  suburbs  of  Paris;  but  before  the 
deeds  were  ready  for  delivery,  he  had  dissipated  his 
newly  acquired  wealth  in  other  and  foolish  (?)  ways. 
Improvident,  however,  as  Ficquet  may  have  been  in 
this  instance,  he  certainly  was  not  guilty  of  reckless 
extravagance  when  he  purchased  at  the  Varranchon 
sale  in  1777,  two  drawings  in  bistre  (9x14  inches  in 
size),  by  the  great  Fragonard,  for  900  and  800  francs 
respectively.  He  could  not  have  made  a  safer  in- 
vestment of  his  louis  d'ors  than  he  did  when 
he  exchanged  them  for  these  precious  bits  of  paper. 

The  most  of  Ficquet's  engravings  were  from  por- 
traits already  engraved  and  according  to  Georges 
Duplessis  they  are  not  even  faithful  copies,  but  the 
comparisons  we  have  ourselves  been  able  to  insti- 
tute between  Ficquet's  portraits  and  those  by  Drevet 
and  others  after  the  same  originals,  do  not  lead  to  this 

57 


A    TRIO    OF    FRENCH  ENGRAVERS 

conclusion.  Their  principal  claim  to  distinction  is, 
however,  undoubtedly  the  beauty  and  microscopic 
minuteness  of  their  execution.  Ficquet  has  been 
styled  the  Gerard  Dow  of  engravers  for  the  elabor- 
ate and  perfect  finish  of  his  plates.  In  a  figure  only 
a  centimetre  high,  says  Baron  Portalis,  Ficquet  draws 
as  many  lines  as  Drevet  or  Nanteuil  in  a  folio-sized 
print.  "  He  engraved  in  little,  but  he  was  a  great 
engraver." 

Ordinarily,  in  a  copper-  or  steel  plate  engraving, 
the  artist  first  draws  his  design  upon  paper  and  then 
transfers  it  to  the  prepared  metal  surface ;  but  Ficquet 
designed  directly  upon  the  copper  and  then  traced, 
with  an  extremely  fine  point,  the  outline  of  the  por- 
trait. In  the  trial  proofs  some  of  these  lines  are  so 
faint  as  scarcely  to  be  perceptible  with  the  naked 
eye.  It  was  by  repeatedly  retracing  these  lines 
with  the  graver  (eight  to  ten  times)  that  the  effect 
which  the  artist  desired  was  finally  produced;  new 
lines  were  seldom  added.  M.  Faucheux  states  that 
he  had  several  times  counted  the  lines  in  a  first  and 
fourth  impression  of  a  plate  of  Ficquet  without  being 
able  to  discover  the  least  variation  in  their  number 
or  disposition,  and  had  spent  hours  in  fruitless 

58 


ETIENNE  F1CQ.UET 

search  for  a  material  difference  between  two  impres- 
sions of  the  same  engraving,  until  upon  bringing 
them  close  together  it  became  evident  that  the  plate 
had  been  retouched. 

It  is  not  invariably  the  case — we  are  cautioned 
by  this  painstaking  student  of  these  "  miracles  of 
patience  and  almost  incredible  dexterity  " — that  the 
first  state  of  a  plate  by  Ficquet  is  the  one  to  be 
selected  as  the  best,  but  the  one  the  artist  judged  to 
be  the  most  satisfactory,  and  frequently  this  might 
be  one  of  the  later  states  of  the  plate. 

Such  minute  work  of  the  burin,  in  the  execution 
of  which,  says  an  eminent  engraver  of  another  na- 
tionality, the  instrument  scarcely  touches  the  surface 
of  the  copper  and  the  artist  holds  his  breath  and 
almost  stops  the  pulsations  of  his  heart,  required  a 
tranquil  environment,  and  in  order,  says  M.  Fau- 
cheux,  to  insure  as  far  as  possible  the  quiet  of  his 
studio,  Ficquet  betook  himself  across  the  Seine  to 
lodgings  in  the  rue  dii  petit  yaugirard,  behind  the 
Luxembourg  gardens,  one  of  the  most  peaceful  and 
retired  quarters  of  Paris;  and  whenever  a  vehicle 
rumbled  past  his  door  he  intermitted  his  labor  for 
fear  that  the  vibrations  communicated  to  the  house 

59 


A    TRIO    OF    FRENCH  ENGRAVERS 

would  cause  his  hand  to  swerve  from  the  line  he 
wished  to  trace.  It  appears  to  have  been  stillness  and 
repose,  not  the  seclusion  of  "a  life  monastic,"  that 
he  sought,  according  to  Ponce's  story  anent  the  fair 
members  of  the  community  of  Saint  Cyr. 

The  rich  and  graceful  borders  which,  after  the 
fashion  of  the  day,  surround  many  of  Ficquet's  por- 
traits, and  add  so  much  to  their  pictorial  effect,  were 
generally  engraved  first,  and  are  not  always  by  Fic- 
quet  himself.  Some  are  by  Pierre  Philip  Choffard, 
others  by  Charles  Nicholas  Cochin,  an  artist  of  equal 
merit.  The  French  designers  and  engravers  of  the 
eighteenth  century  frequently  combined  their  talents, 
and  worked  in  co-partnerships  of  twos  and  threes. 
Comparatively  few  artists  designed  and  engraved  a 
portrait  and  its  entourage,  and  finished  a  plate  from 
first  to  last. 

Ficquet's  first  engravings  were  executed,  while 
he  was  still  under  the  tuition  of  his  master,  Schmidt, 
for  Michael  Odieuvre,  an  energetic  and  enterprising 
Norman  who  came  to  Paris  and  engaged  in  the  busi- 
ness of  print  selling.  In  1738  he  began  the  publica- 
tion of  a  most  ambitious  work,  namely,  a  collection 
of  portraits  (a  number  of  which,  notably  those  of 

60 


ETIENNE  FICQ.UET 


the  early  Kings  of  France,  are  of  course  fictitious) 
of  the  "great  men  of  all  times  and  all  countries." 
As  time  passed  on  these  engravings  were  turned 
to  a  variety  of  uses,  and  good,  bad  and  indiffer- 
ent impressions  of  the  plates  have  now  for  many 
years  formed  the  stock  in  trade,  and  a  seemingly 
inexhaustible  supply  of  material  for  print  shops  the 
world  over.  These  portraits  have  been  brought  to 
this  country  by  the  thousand;  and  as  a  matter  of 
record  and  a  guide  to  the  American  collector  of 
French  prints,  we  devote  a  generous  portion  of  the 
space  at  our  disposal  to  M.  Faucheux's  collation  of 
this  publication  of  Odieuvre,  and  his  narration  of  the 
fortunes,  or  rather  misfortunes,  which  subsequently 
befell  these  fine  engravings.  The  numerous  and 
diversified  paths  which  open  their  alluring  vistas 
before  the  eager  eyes  of  book  and  print  collectors 
appear  smooth  and  safe,  but  for  the  most  part  they 
are  devious  ways,  lined  with  pitfalls  and  ending  in 
labyrinths,  out  of  which,  unless  there  is  a  guiding 
thread  within  his  reach,  the  wanderer  has  small 
chance  of  escape. 

In  1738,  when  the  first  of  these  portraits  ap- 
peared, Odieuvre  was  living  at  the  quai  de  I' Ecole, 

61 


A    TRIO    OF    FRENCH  ENGRAVERS 

vts-d-vis  la  Samaritaine.  The  portraits  which  were 
published  with  this  address  are  signed  by  the  good 
engravers  and  designers  of  the  time — Eisen,  Bale- 
chou,  Poilly,  Wille,  Schmidt  and  his  scholar  Ficquet. 
All  the  first  proofs  are  before  the  address  and  are 
very  fine  and  rare.  Those  which  come  after  the 
address  of  quai  de  I'Ecole  vis-a-vis  la  Samaritaine 
a  la  Belle  Image  ' '  are  still  very  beautiful.  About 
1745  Odieuvre  went  to  live  in  the  "  riie  d'Anjou, 
la  derniere  porte-cochere  d  gauche,  entrant  par  la 
rue  Dauphine  au  premier";  he  then  removed  to 
the  rue  des  Mathurins  che^  M.  Jombert."  The 
impressions  which  bear  these  addresses  are  still  re- 
garded as  "good  enough."  At  last,  in  1755 — the 
year  preceding  his  death — Odieuvre  was  domiciled 
in  the  ''rue  des  Postes,  cul-de-sac  des  l^ignes/' 
The  impressions  with  this  address  are  feeble,  while 
those  which  were  published  after  Odieuvre's  death, 
with  the  address  effaced,  are  of  no  value  whatever. 
The  plates  had  become  entirely  too  passe. 

These  portraits  were  printed  upon  four  different 
papers,  to  wit,  in  folio,  "  Nom  de  Jesus  "  (the  water 
mark),  only  thirty  impressions;  in  quarto,  ''grand 
raisin  "   (royal),   fifty  impressions  ;   in  quarto, 

62 


ETIENNE  FICQUET 

"  carre"  (square),  and  finally  in  octavo,  "  Nom  de 
Jesus."  It  is  known,  also,  that  towards  the  last 
Odieuvre  made  use  of  old  plates  by  Thomas  deLeu, 
Leonard  Gualtier,  Michael  Lasne,  Mellan  and  Ede- 
linck.  Any  old  copper-plate  appears  to  have  been 
good  enough  for  his  purpose,  and  his  book  finally 
became  a  grand  melange  of  prints,  ancient  and 
modern — a  sort  of  pictorial  pot-pourri. 

At  first  these  portraits  were  not  accompanied  by 
text;  later  they  were  used  to  illustrate  different 
works,  such  as  the  "  Histoire  universelle  de  De 
Thou/'  "  Les  Memoir es  de  Comines,  "  "  Les  Mem- 
oires  de  Conde/'  ' '  de  Sully, "  dela  Ligiie/  etc.  It 
was  not  until  1755  that  they  were  reunited  in  vol- 
umes accompanied  by  a  text  written  by  the  French 
advocate,  Dreux  du  Radier,  and  published  under 
the  title  "  L' Europe  illustre,  contenant  I'histoire 
abregee  des  Souverains,  des  Princes,  des  Prelats,  des 
Ministres,  des  grand  Capitaines,  des  Magistrals,  des 
Savans,  des  Artistes,  et  des  Dames  Celebres  en 
Europe,  dans  le  Xl^'  Steele  compris,  jusqu' a  pre- 
sent. Par  M.  Dreux  du  Radier,  Avocat.  Ouvrage 
ENRiCHi  DE  Portraits,  par  les  soins  du  Sieur  Odi- 
euvre a  Paris  che^  Odieuvre,  rue  des  Posies,  cul- 

63 


A    TRIO    OF    FRENCH  ENGRAVERS 

de-sac   des  yignes.   Faubourg    Saint  Marceau, 

MDCCLV." 

This  publication  continued  until  1756,  when  it 
was  stopped  by  the  death  of  Odieuvre.  It  then  em- 
braced six  volumes  containing  six  hundred  portraits, 
all  of  which  are  weak  impressions,  although  some 
are  worse  than  others.  There  is  another  edition 
with  the  same  date  (i7'?5),  in  which  an  attempt  was 
made  to  distract  attention  from  the  feebleness  of  the 
portraits  by  surrounding  them  with  historical  bor- 
ders engraved  by  Babel.  As  these  borders  were 
considered  "  far  from  being  a  title  to  nobility  "  the 
dealers  generally  removed  them  and  left  the  por- 
traits without  margins.  Finally  in  1777  the  book- 
seller Nyon  Vaine,  added  a  new  frontispiece  (a  re- 
duced copy  of  which  appears  upon  the  opposite 
page)  and  published  the  work  avec  approbation  et 
privilege  du  Roi.  The  impressions  in  this  edition 
are  naturally  still  worse  than  those  in  the  edition  of 

The  portraits  of  Odieuvre,  therefore,  exist  in  six 
different  states,  as  follows: 

First  State.    Before  all  letters. 

Second  State.    With  the  address  of  "  qiiai  de  VEcoh,  vis-d-vis  la 
Samaritaine  d  la  Belle  Image." 

64 


ETIENNE  FICaUET 

Third  State,  With  the  address  of  the  "  rue  d'Anjou,  la  derni- 
er e  porte-cochere  a  gauche^  entrant  par  la  rue  Dauphine 
au  premier  "  and  also  that  of  "  rue  des  Mathurins  che^  M. 
Jombert." 

Fourth  State.  With  the  address  of  the  ''rue  des  Postes,  cul-de- 
sac  des  Vignesy 

Fifth  State.    With  the  ornaments  of  the  engraver  Babel  added  in 

passe-partout. 
Sixth  State.    The  address  effaced.* 

Here  we  have  the  inside  history  of  the  Odieuvre 
collection  of  portraits.  It  is  the  old  familiar  story: 
most  copper-plates,  and  wood  blocks  as  well,  have 
been  pressed  into  service  until  they  were  worn  to 
mere  phantoms  of  their  former  selves,  then  retouched 
and  furbished  up  and  started  off  upon  a  new  career 
to  entrap  the  careless  and  unwary.  The  reveren- 
tial care  with  which  some  of  the  Parisian  publishers 
of  engravings  shield  and  cherish  in  their  infirm  old 
age  these  remnants  of  former  vigor  and  beauty  ex- 
cites our  unfeigned  admiration. 

Ficquet  died  December  ii,  1794,  at  the  age  of 
seventy-five.  He  produced  one  hundred  and  sev- 
enty-five different  portraits,  namely,  thirty-four  for 
Odieuvre,  thirty-nine  various,  and  one  hundred  and 

*  All  the  portraits  of  Odieuvre  do  not  exist  in  six  states,  but 
most  of  the  engravings  by  Ficquet  should  have  them. 

67 


A    TRIO    OF    FRENCH  ENGRA\'ERS 

two  "little  marvels"  for  La  vie  des  peintres  Flam- 
andes  AUemands  et  Hollattdais,  avec  des  portraits 
grave's  en  taille  douce  by  J.  B.  Descamps.  Published 
at  Paris  cbei  Charles- Antoine  Jombert,  libraire  dii 
roi  pour  Vartillerie  et  la  genie,  rue  Daupbine,  d 
I' image  de  Notre  Dame  mdccliii,  4  vols,  in  8vo. 

The  four  volumes  were  not  published  simul- 
taneously, the  last  not  until  1763.  In.  consequence 
the  first  volumes  were  somewhat  worn  and  perhaps 
partially  destroyed  when  the  last  two  appeared,  so, 
in  order  to  make  the  work  uniform  throughout, 
Jombert  reprinted  the  first  two  volumes  which  con- 
tained thirty-two  portraits  engraved  by  Ficquet. 
Here  is  another  wheel  within  a  wheel,  and  collectors 
must  seek  the  first  two  volumes  of  this  work  which 
bear  the  early  date,  and  avoid  the  reprint  of  1763,  in 
order  to  secure  good  impressions  of  all  the  prints. 
The  copper-plates  of  this  collection  of  portraits 
were  in  existence  in  1864  and  probably  are  still. 

Many  of  Ficquet's  copper-plates  (retouched  from 
time  to  time),  in  addition  to  those  in  the  Odieuvre 
and  Descamps  series,  are  still  in  the  hands  of  Pari- 
sian book  and  print  sellers,  where  they  have  been 
lodged  ever  since  impressions  from  them  were  of- 

68 


ETIENNE  FlCdLET 

fered  for  sale  in  1777,  at  three  francs  each,  by  Prevost, 
graveur,  rue  St.  Thofiias,  pres  la  porte  Saint-Jacques; 
and  modern  "  restrikes  "  from  a  number  of  the  most 
desirable — or,  as  an  extra  illustrator  of  books  would 
say,  useful — portraits,  such  as  those  of  La  Fontaine, 
Rousseau,  Montaigne  and  Descartes,  may  conse- 
quently be  made  as  thick  in  Paris  as  peas  in  a  pod 
or  autumnal  leaves  in  Vallombrosa  whenever  a  de- 
mand for  them  arises. 

Pierre-Francois  Basan,  author  of  the  Dictionnaire 
des  Graveurs  Anciens  et  Modernes  (Paris,  1789), 
possessed  a  varied  assortment  of  plates  engraved  by 
celebrated  artists  (among  them  some  by  Ficquet  and 
Savart),  a  round  half  hundred  of  which  he  inserted 
in  his  work  to  give  an  idea,  as  he  says,  of  the  tal- 
ent of  these  various  engravers;  but  he  considerately 
offers  the  book  for  sale  with  or  without  these 
illustrations.  As  they  are  mostly  naught  but  "faint, 
shadowy  semblances  "  of  pictures,  the  amateurs, 
de  ton  gout  of  those  days  doubtless  availed  them- 
selves of  this  option  and  took  the  work  sans 
gravures.  Of  all  sad  things  in  graphic  art,  one 
of  the  saddest  is  a  print  from  a  worn  out  copper- 
plate.   Engraved  plates  never  grow  old  gracefully. 

69 


A    TRIO    OF    FRENCH  ENGRAVERS 

"Time  writes  wrinkles  on  their  brows  "  and  ''crops 
the  roses  from  their  cheeks,"  and  the  finer  and  more 
beautiful  they  are  in  their  first  state,  the  poorer  and 
more  decrepit  they  become  in  the  last.  A  broadly 
and  deeply  cut  plate  will,  of  course,  not  show  wear 
and  tear  like  one  composed  of  delicate  lines,  and 
so  long  as  it  endures  will  present  a  comparatively 
respectable  appearance. 

Good  early  impressions  of  Ficquet's  engravings 
with  full  lettering  can  be  procured  for  from  forty  to 
fifty  francs  each,  except  the  portraits  of  La  Fontaine 
and  Moliere,  which,  on  account  of  the  popularity  of 
the  subjects,  are  somewhat  higher  priced.  Proofs 
lettre  grise  (open  letter)  bring  from  seventy-five  to 
one  hundred  francs.  Needle  proofs,  i.  e.,  with  the 
name  of  the  artist  only  scratched  in  with  the  needle, 
are  valued  at  from  two  to  three  hundred  francs,  and 
trial  proofs  (eau  forte  pur)  four  to  five  hundred 
francs.  If,  however,  we  are  correctly  informed  in 
regard  to  Ficquet's  peculiar  manner  of  engraving, 
we  do  not  quite  comprehend  how  there  can  be  any 
eau  forte  pur,  strictly  speaking,  of  his  prints. 

More  than  one-half  of  the  one  hundred  and  sev- 
enty-five portraits  engraved  by  Ficquet  are  of  Dutch, 

70 


PIERRE  SAVART 


French  and  Flemish  artists,  among  them,  Berchem, 
Brauwer,  Gaspard  de  Grayer,  Denner,  Gerard 
Dow,  De  Heem,  Houbraken,  Van  Huysum,  Van 
Mieris,  Mignard,  Netscher,  Rubens,  Jan  Steen, 
Terburg,  Teniers  (David  le  jeune),  Vander  Velde 
and  Wouvermans.  The  list  includes  the  names  of 
only  four  Englishmen  by  birth  and  of  two  by  adop- 
tion, viz. :  Pope,*  Addison,  Steele  and  Swift,  Van- 
dyke and  Kneller. 

At  this  late  day  it  would  be  difficult,  if  not  im- 
possible, to  bring  together  at  any  cost  a  complete 
collection  of  fine  early  impressions  (and  no  others 
of  any  artist  are  worth  the  trouble  of  collecting)  of 
Ficquet's  engravings.  •  The  little  oval  of  Louis  XV 
would  almost  certainly  be  unattainable.  It  was  en- 
graved on  silver  for  the  Almanach  Parisien  of  Barbou 
and  was  an  excessively  rare  print  a  generation  ago. 

Pierre  Savart.  Goncerning  this  artist  neither 
M.  Faucheux  nor  Baron  Portalis  have  much  informa- 
tion to  impart.  In  the  Biographical  Dictionaries  he  is 
curtly  dismissed  with  a  paragraph  of  half  a  dozen 

*  Engraved,  as  were  also  those  of  Addison  and  Steele,  to  illus- 
trate a  French  edition  of  the  "Spectator"  published  in  Paris  in 
'754-5- 

75 


A    TRIO    OF    FRENCH  ENGRAVERS 

lines,  and  M.  Duplessis  tells  us  that  were  it  not  for 
his  portraits  of  Nicolas  de  Catinat  and  Madame  Des- 
houlieres,  which  are  drawn  with  a  certain  skill,  we 
might  entirely  ignore  the  name  of  this  engraver. 
Poor  fellow!  what  a  narrow  escape  he  had  from  ob- 
livion. 

Savart  was  born  in  1 737,  at  Saint-Pierre  de 
Thimer  en  Thimerais,  departement  d' Eur e-et- Loire, 
and  came  to  Paris,  the  Mecca  of  all  aspiring  artists, 
at  the  age  of  seventeen.  Three  years  later  he  made 
what  possibly  may  have  been  a  love  match,  but 
which  has  very  much  the  appearance  of  a  mariage 
de  convenance,  with  a  demoiselle  of  the  mature  age 
of  thirty-four,  who  was  the  proprietress  of  a  little 
print  shop  in  the  rue  Saint-Jacques.  In  1764  we 
find  Savart  himself  established  in  business  in  the 
rue  de  Cluny  as  a  marchand  d'estampes,  having 
in  the  meantime  acquired  a  knowledge  of  the  art 
of  engraving.  He  was  a  follower,  an  imitator 
and  a  copyist  of  Ficquet,  but  broader  in  his  man- 
ner of  treatment;  his  portraits  of  Liebnitz  and  La 
Fontaine  are  indifferently  executed  copies  of  the 
engravings  of  those  celebrities  made  by  Ficquet. 

Savart's  first  engraving,  dated  1765,  of  which 

74 


I 


J.Vivt 


Chfy^  Ijautcu/'  Harnere  cle 


J'  Sao  art.  Sculp  lyyi 
Foritarakic 


PIERRE  SAVART 


there  is  thought  to  be  but  one  impression  in  exis- 
tence, was  a  portrait  of  Jean  Jacques  Rousseau, 
the  clock  maker's  son  from  Geneva."  This  por- 
trait, says  M.  Faucheux,  is  lacking  in  all  the  quali- 
ties of  a  good  engraving  except  firmness  of  hand. 
The  portraits  which  follow  this  first  essay  of  Savart 
show  more  and  more  the  influence  of  Ficquet,  the 
strokes  of  his  burin  becoming  finer  and  firmer.  In 
the  ''Louis  XV"  and  the  ''Racine"  the  lines  are 
of  such  wonderful  fineness,  writes  Baron  Portalis, 
that  they  resemble  mezzotints  and  require  a  magni- 
fying glass  to  distinguish  the  marks  of  the  burin. 
In  1 77 1,  Savart  adopted  a  new  manner  and  the  face 
in  his  portrait  of  Fenelon  is  made  entirely  with  dots 
or  stippled  {au  pointilU),  in  imitation  probably  of 
the  "  artist  amateur  "  Grateloup,  whose  remarkable 
engravings  had  lately  appeared  and  set  all  Paris  agog 
with  wonder  and  curiosity. 

In  Savart's  portraits  of  Bossuet,  Colbert  and 
Boileau  (which  last  is  considered  by  Portalis  as  his 
masterpiece  comme  fermete)  the  lines  are  extremely 
fine  and  these  plates  are  his  highest  achievements 
as  an  engraver.  About  the  years  1775  to  1778  his 
eyesight,  it  is  presumed,  began  to  fail,  and  the 

79 


A    TRIO    OF    FRENCH  ENGRAVERS 

portraits  which  he  engraved  from  this  time  on  go 
from  bad  to  worse;  so  poor  indeed  do  they  become 
in  the  estimation  of  M.  Faucheux  that  he  considered 
it  probable  that  they  were  executed  by  his  sister — 
as  were  all  the  heavy — balotird" — borders  of  his 
later  portraits — and  simply  retouched  by  him. 

Savart  engraved  thirty  portraits  besides  the 
plates  of  Diane  et  Endymion  "  and  three  views  of 
Paris.  These  portraits  were  all  engraved  in  the 
fifteen  years  between  1765  and  1780,  and  include, 
among  others,  in  addition  to  the  Louis  XV,  Racine, 
Bossuet,  Colbert  and  Boileau  above  mentioned, 
portraits  of  Louis  de  Bourbon  Prince  de  Conde, 
Fenelon,  Nicolas  de  Livry,  Catinat,  Bayle,  Richelieu, 
Buffon,  Rabelais,  La  Bruyere,  the  Mme.  Deshou- 
lieres  with  its  unusually  fine  encadrement  and  the 
exceedingly  rare  and  minutely  executed  busies  of 
Louis  XVI  and  Marie  Antoinette,  declared  by  M. 
Faucheux  to  be  impossible  of  execution  without 
the  eyes  of  Ficquet  (see  page  47). 

In  1780  "the  restless  wandering "  Savart  was 
living  within  bow-shot  of  the  Cathedral  of  Notre 
Dame  at  the  Hotel  Chamoiiiet  sur  le  quai  Saint- 
Bernard,  having  changed  his  place  of  abode  six 

80 


J E AN- B A PTISTE    DE  GRATELOUP 

times  in  about  twice  as  many  years.  Here  all  traces 
of  him  are  lost  and  he  disappears  from  our  view  as 
completely  as  if,  wearied,  disheartened,  and  an- 
ticipating Georges  Duplessis's  unfavorable  verdict 
upon  his  art,  he  had  plunged  into  the  sullen  waters 
of  the  river  which  flowed  past  his  dwelling,  and 
been  carried  by  its  current  into  the  cavernous  depths 
of  the  sea. 

Jean-Baptiste  de  Grateloup,  a  French  savant 
"  who  practiced  engraving  simply  for  amuse- 
ment" and  the  most  gifted  and  accomplished 
of  this  trio  of  engravers  in  petit  format,  was  born 
February  25,  1735,  of  noble  parentage,  at  Dax,  an 
old  Roman  town  in  the  Pyrenees,  near  Bayonne, 
noted  since  ancient  times  for  its  hot  saline  baths 
and  still  a  resort  for  invalids.  Grateloup  re- 
ceived his  education  at  the  college  of  the  "  Barn- 
abites "  in  his  native  town,  and  upon  the  com- 
pletion of  his  studies  in  1757,  removed  to  Bordeaux. 
In  1762  he  repaired  to  Paris,  where  he  not  only 
practiced  with  signal  success  the  arts  of  painting, 
sculpture  and  engraving,  but  became  a  busy  man 
of  affairs  and  the  head  of  a  large  establishment 

83 


A    TRIO    OF    FRENCH  ENGRAVERS 

which  dealt  in  jewelry  and  precious  stones.  The 
engraving  of  the  nine  portraits  which  constitute  the 
entire  product  of  his  burin  was  merely  a  pastime  in 
which  he  occasionally  indulged,  and  it  is  estimated 
that  he  employed  only  six  months  of  ordinary  labor 
in  engraving  them  all. 

Like  Ficquet,  Grateloup  was  myopic;  but  unlike 
that  fortunate  individual,  whose  natural  force  con- 
tinued unabated  to  the  end  of  his  days,  and  whose 
last  portrait — that  of  Ariosto — engraved  when  he 
was  seventy-five  years  of  age,  is  as  good  as  his  first, 
Grateloup  was  compelled  to  abandon  the  practice  of 
the  art  of  engraving  in  early  life,  on  account  of  a 
cataract  which  deprived  him  of  the  sight  of  one  of 
his  eyes.  The  last  strokes  of  his  burin  were  the 
finishing  touches  upon  his  "  Bossuet,  en  pied,"  en- 
graved in  1 77 1,  when  he  was  thirty-five  years  of 
age,  and  when  we  examine  this  portrait,  writes 
Georges  Duplessis,  we  are  not  surprised  to  learn 
that  the  engraver  died  blind.  This  affliction  did  not, 
however,  oblige  Grateloup  to  abandon  immediately 
all  artistic  pursuits.  He  modeled  with  exquisite 
skill  in  wax,  painted  enamels  which  rivaled  those  of 
Petitot,  and  designed  the  rich  parures  which  his 

84 


0</  /     ■  C/^  J°JiOOS 


JEAN-BAPTISTE    DE  GRATELOUP 

cunning  artisans  wrought  out  for  the  curled  and 
powdered"  beauties  of  that  luxurious  age,  who 
demanded  the  most  elegant  and  artistic  articles 
of  personal  adornment  that  taste  and  talent  could 
produce  and  money  command. 

Grateloup's  process  of  engraving,  which  is  and 
will  always  remain  a  mystery,  appears  to  have  in- 
volved the  use  of  aquatint,  mezzotint,  line  and  "dry 
point,"  and  some  parts  of  the  plate,  it  is  said,  were 
hammered.  The  secret  was  confided  to  his  nephew, 
Dr.  J.  P.  S.  de  Grateloup,  under  a  promise,  which 
was  faithfully  observed,  that  it  should  never  be  di- 
vulged, and  it  died  and  was  buried  with  him.  If 
a  fundamental  principle  of  all  true  art  is  to  conceal 
art,  then  Grateloup  met  the  requirement  in  an  ex- 
ceptional manner. 

It  is  surmised  that  the  engravings  were  done 
upon  steel  instead  of  copper,  and  that  the  process 
was  a  rapid  one.  They  were  printed  with  a  spe- 
cially compounded  printing  ink,  and  it  is  believed 
that  the  printing,  especially  in  those  parts  of  the 
plate  which  were  lightly  engraved,  required  extreme 
care,  and  in  fact  presented  even  greater  difficulties 
than  the  process  of  engraving.    Grateloup  is  sup- 

87 


A    TRIO    OF    FRENCH  ENGRAVERS 

posed  to  have  drawn  all  the  impressions  himself, 
aided  by  his  nephew,  in  some  of  the  later  tirages  of 
his  plates,  as  in  all  Paris,  it  was  said,  he  could  not 
find  a  printer  able  to  print  them  to  his  satisfaction. 
Perhaps  he  did  not  search  very  assiduously,  and 
preferred  to  make  the  composition  of  the  ink  and 
the  manipulation  of  the  plate  as  profound  a  secret  as 
he  kept  his  unique  process  of  engraving. 

Grateloup's  first  plate  was  a  portrait  of  Cardinal 
Polignac;  his  last  and  finest  (and  the  only  one  with 
which  he  was  himself  entirely  satisfied)  that  of 
"  Bossuet,  en  pied,"  an  engraving  which  is  a  veri- 
table tour  de  force,  and  for  minuteness  and  delicacy 
of  execution  has  never  been  equaled.  So  high  an  au- 
thority as  Baron  Roger  Portalis  does  not,  it  is  true, 
share  with  the  connoisseurs  of  Paris  their  unbounded 
enthusiasm  for  Grateloup's  engravings,  or  believe 
that  they  display  ''all  the  genius  of  the  Graphic 
Art."  He  regards  them  as  decidedly  inferior  to 
those  of  Ficquet,  and  chiefly  interesting  as  the  essays 
in  art  of  an  amateur  who  produced  remarkable 
effects  by  a  new  and  curious  process;  but  never- 
theless he  is  obliged  to  admit  that  Grateloup's  full- 
length  portrait  of  the  great  orator  and  dignitary  of 

88 


JEAN-B APTISTE    DE  GRATELOUP 

the  French  church,  Jacques  Benige  Bossuet,  Bishop 
of  Meaux,  is  a  marvelous  piece  of  engraving. 

M.  Duplessis  coincides  with  Baron  Portalis  and 
is  equally  chary  in  his  commendation  of  Grateloup's 
engravings.  Basan,  on  the  contrary,  who  was 
probably  quite  as  good  a  judge  as  either  of  the  others, 
although  perhaps  not  an  entirely  disinterested  one, 
eulogized  them  in  unmeasured  terms  and  M.  Joly, 
keeper  of  the  prints  in  the  Bibliotheque  Imperiale, 
declared  them  to  be  unique  and  unapproachable 
examples  of  engraving  in  miniature  which  would 
hold  a  distinguished  place  among  the  chefs  d'ceuvres 
which  were  the  glory  of  the  collection  in  his  keep- 
ing. We  quite  agree  with  M.  Faucheux  that  such 
an  opinion  from  one  who  understood  so  thoroughly 
the  art  of  engraving,  leaves  no  room  for  doubt  as  to 
the  merit  of  J.  B.  de  Grateloup  as  an  engraver,  and 
that  it  is  a  waste  of  time  to  attempt  to  refute  those 
who  find  no  other  value  in  his  portraits  except  their 
rarity.  It  becomes  a  matter  of  opinion  and  of  taste, 
and  Doctors  in  Art  as  well  as  in  Philosophy  will 
disagree  to  the  end  of  time. 

Before  the  Revolution  and  the  Reign  of  Terror 
threw  their  dark  shadows  over  the  gay  capital  city 

91 


A    TRIO    OF    FRENCH  ENGRAVERS 


and  drove  the  Fine  Arts  into  temporary  banishment, 
Grateloup  had  probably  left  Paris  and  altogether 
abandoned  artistic  pursuits,  as  no  work  of  his  hand 
is  known  to  have  been  executed  later  than  the  year 
1784.  He  never  married,  and  in  a  state  of  single 
blessedness  lived  well  on  into  the  present  century 
resting  on  the  laurels  he  had  won,  and  died  in  1817 
at  the  ripe  old  age  of  eighty-two  in  the  ancient 
walled  town  of  Dax*  where  he  was  born. 

We  have  the  word  of  Grateloup's  nephew  and 
confidential  assistant  that  the  plates  which  his  uncle 
engraved  were  either  lost  or  destroyed.  No  modern 
impressions  from  the  original  plates  should  there- 
fore exist  and  probably  do  not — vague  rumors  to 
the  contrary  notwithstanding;  but  there  is  no  telling 
by  what  clever  modus  operandi  they  may  have  been 
imitated  by  some  Parisian  contrefacteur. 

The  original  proofs  of  Grateloup's  engravings 
were  never  offered  for  sale,  but  were  presented  by  the 
artist  to  his  friends,  as  were  also  his  exquisite  enamels 
and  beautiful  cameos.  The  set  of  nine  portraits  of 
the  premier  tirage  and  in  bon  etat  are  now  valued  at 

*  The  City  of  Aquae.  In  French,  ville  d'Acqs.  Corrupted  to 
d'Ax,  thence  Dax. — Lippincott's  Gazetteer. 

92 


JEAN-BAPTISTE    DE  GRATELOUP 

twelve  to  fifteen  hundred  francs  and  even  more. 
The  Bossuet,  en  pied''  alone  in  proof  state  is  worth 
five  to  six  hundred  francs. 

The  following  is  a  chronologically  arranged  list 
of  the  portraits  engraved  by  Grateloup.  Of  each 
plate  there  are  two  to  four  different  states.  When 
the  impressions  are  upon  papier  de  chine  the  paper 
is  generally  double: 


1765. 

Cardinal  de  Polignac,  after  Rigaud, 

in 

i2mo 

1765. 

John  Dryden, 

"  Kneller 

1766. 

J.  B.  Rousseau, 

"  Aved 

( ( 

1767. 

Fenelon, 

"  Vivier 

( ( 

1768. 

Adrienne  Lecouvreur, 

Coypel 

( ( 

8vo 

1768. 

Montesquieu, 

Dassier 

i2mo 

1769. 

Descartes, 

"  Hals 

1770. 

Bossuet,  en  huste, 

' '  Rigaud 

<  ( 

( ( 

1771. 

Bossuet,  en  pied, 

8vo 

No  portraits  of  Ficquet,  Savart  or  Grateloup  are 
known  to  exist,  and  the  artists  whose  facile  hands 
fixed  in  **the  glorious  permanence  of  art"  the  line- 
aments of  so  many  of  their  fellow  men  were  too 
modest  and  retiring,  it  would  seem,  to  leave  ''effi- 
gies "  of  themselves  to  satisfy  the  natural  and  par- 
donable curiosity  of  an  admiring  world. 


93 


EXTRACTS  FROM 
"LA  CALCOGRAFIA" 
OF  GIUSEPPE  LONGHI 
MILANO  1830 


ETIENNE  FICaUET 

BORN  AT  PARIS  ABOUT 
1731  (or  1719),  DIED 
AT  SAME  PLACE  I  794 

If  the  supreme 
delicacy  of  a  neat 
and  well  directed 
stroke  constitutes 
in  itself  the  true 
merit  of  an  en- 
graving, we  may 
safely  assert  that 
Etienne  Ficquet 
reached  the  apex 
of  perfection. 
Among  the  many  little  portraits,  engraved  by  him 
entirely  with  the  burin,  are  a  number  which  particu- 
larly attract  and  delight  the  amateur,  and  are  a  source 
of  marvel  to  connoisseurs  and  objects  of  despair  to 
imitators  and  copyists.  The  most  wonderful  of  all, 
almost  superhuman  for  its  extremely  delicate  out- 
lines, is  the  portrait  of  La  Fontaine.  Viewed  through 
a  convex  magnifying  glass  which  doubles  or  even 
quadruples  its  dimensions,  the  lines  will  still  appear 

99 


^TIENNE  FICQUET 

clearly  and  firmly  cut:  To  the  strongest  and  most 
myopic  naked  eye  they  are,  in  many  instances, 
absolutely  imperceptible.  The  head,  in  accordance 
with  the  fashion  of  those  times,  is  covered  by  an 
immense  wig,  in  which  the  curls  and  tufts  of  hair 
falling  upon  the  shoulders  and  chest  are  of  most 
natural  softness  and  splendor.  Around  the  neck  is 
a  tie  of  the  finest  linen  most  elaborately  treated  and 
remarkable  for  the  almost  invisible  thinness  of  the 
lines  and  points  by  which  it  is  formed.  The  face  (no 
larger  than  the  nail  of  my  index  finger)  is  designed, 
or,  more  correctly  speaking,  modeled  with  the  ut- 
most veracity  :  the  mezzotint  parts  being  produced 
by  points  in  the  style  of  the  best  chalcographists, 
while  the  shaded  dark  parts  are  produced  by  con- 
tinuous and  equidistant  cuts.  But  a  real  miracle  of 
art  which  the  non-professional  could  neither  detect 
nor  comprehend,  is  the  truly  incredible  care  and 
dexterity  with  which  the  eyes  have  been  engraved : 
In  the  etchings  of  Woollett  may  be  found  points  of 
aqua  fortis  larger  than  these  pupils,  and  yet  in  so 
small  a  space  Ficquet  had  the  courage  to  introduce 
six  lines  around  the  iris  the  width  of  which  occupy 
more  than  a  third  of  the  pupil  itself,  and  he  turned 

lOO 


ETIEN  NE  FICQ.UET 

these  lines  smoothly,  restricted  them  gradually, 
tapered  them  off  toward  the  luminous  point,  and 
recentered  them  in  the  same  scarcely  visible  grooves, 
without  allowing  them  to  interfere  one  with  the 
other. 

Who  can  tell  the  great  amount  of  work  and 
labor  which  such  microscopic  things  (compared  to 
which  the  human  fingers  appear  colossal)  must  have 
cost  the  artist  who  executed  them,  if  a  simple  de- 
scription of  them  has  given  me  so  great  and  difficult 
a  task  ?  Perhaps  some  connoisseur  and  lover  of  art 
will  accuse  me  of  indulging  in  too  many  trifling  de- 
tails: but  it  will  certainly  not  so  appear  to  one  who 
has — like  me — tried  to  engrave  if  not  with  the  same, 
with  approximate  fineness.  He  only  can  appreciate 
its  worth.  He  knows  what  a  lynx  eye  is  required 
even  with  the  help  of  the  magnifying  glass,  and  how 
the  magnifying  glass  produces  discomfort  and  in- 
convenience during  the  work  should  it  be  too  con- 
vex. He  knows  well  that  a  hand,  if  not  of  the 
steadiest,  could  certainly  never  succeed  in  placing 
the  point  of  the  burin  at  the  required  equidistance 
between  one  cut  and  another,  much  less  trace  those 
incomprehensible  grooves  in  engraving  where  the 


101 


ETIENNE  FICQUET 

graver  scarcely  touches  the  surface  of  the  copper, 
and  the  artist,  during  the  operation,  holds  his  breath 
and  almost  stills  the  pulsation  of  his  heart  in  his 
anxiety  to  avoid  a  weak  or  trembling  hand.  He 
knows  that  the  temper  and  sharpness  of  steel  which 
will  suffice  in  ordinarily  delicate  engraving  are  in- 
sufficient for  the  fineness  of  a  stroke  of  so  high 
degree:  and  realizes  the  necessity  of  reducing  the 
burin  to  a  more  pointed,  keener  edge,  which  re- 
quires a  point  of  stronger  temper  (often  difficult  to 
obtain)  and  infinitely  thinner  and  finer,  so  that  it 
will  neither  bend  nor  break  easily. 

**  This  remarkable  fineness  and  accuracy  of  work 
in  the  beautiful  portraits  of  Ficquet  produce  upon 
the  eyes  a  most  pleasing  effect:  they  have  what  may 
be  called  a  velvety  shade,  and  no  other  manner  of 
engraving  could  produce  a  like  effect,  it  is  the 
triumph  of  the  graver,  and  of  the  graver  only.  A 
line  bitten  with  aqua  fortis  in  the  middle  of  such 
work  would  be  like  a  coarse  thread  of  wool  upon  a 
fine  silk  cloth.  .  .  . 

"Therefore,  I  repeat,  if  the  delicacy  of  a  stroke 
or  line  constitutes  in  itself  the  whole  merit  of  an 
engraving,  then  Ficquet  must  be  considered  first 


102 


ETIENNE  FICaUET 


among  the  firsts.  But  in  one  respect  his  portraits, 
being  merely  careful  repetitions  (in  smaller  propor- 
tions) of  engravings  or  etchings  of  former  masters, 
do  not  possess  chalcographical  originality;  and  in 
another  respect  such  a  very  minute  stroke,  while 
appropriate  to  small  busts,  would  be  entirely  out  of 
place  in  figures  of  larger  dimensions.  Consequently, 
while  he  may  not  be  the  first  in  complex  engrav- 
ing, he  is  certainly  unrivaled,  unique  and  wonderful 
in  one  most  difficult  branch  of  the  art. 

''The  portrait  of  La  Fontaine,  about  which  I  have 
spoken  at  such  length  in  this  article,  is  undoubtedly 
the  finest  engraving  by  Ficquet,  although  amateurs 
often  award  the  first  place  to  those  of  Madame  de 
Maintenon,  Rubens  and  Van  Dyck.  But  the  La 
Fontaine  portrait  is  verily  the  test  by  means  of  which 
to  comprehend  the  superiority  of  engraving  by  the 
burin  over  all  other  methods  of  engraving  ever  in- 
vented. In  the  beginning  printing  was  done  by 
engraving  solely  with  the  burin;  then  followed  the 
use  of  aqua  fortis,  helpful  to  the  burin  in  the  prepara- 
tory steps,  but  almost  incapable  of  standing  by  it- 
self   Then,  with  aqua  fortis,  the  graver  and  the 

103 


ETIENNE  FICaL'ET 


point,  a  method  was  introduced  to  imitate  lead 
pencil.  This  system  was  called  engraving  al  gran- 
ito  (stipple),  and  produced  very  elegant  prints,  es- 
pecially those  from  the  hand  of  Bartolozzi  and  some 
others  of  his  rank;  but,  naturally,  they  could  not  be 
compared  to  engravings  with  the  burin  in  taglto 
dolce  {faille  douce),  as  they  lack  art  and  faithfulness 
of  pictorial  representation.  .  .  . 

"  I  will  not  speak  of  the  mezzo-tinto  engravings 
(so  liked  and  admired,  especially  by  amateurs), 
which  system  was  brought  to  the  greatest  perfec- 
tion by  Richard  Earlom;  nor  of  the  aquatints  (by 
which,  in  Paris,  principally  through  the  merit  of 
Jaset,  great  and  beautiful  prints  were  produced), 
because,  compared  with  the  best  productions  of  the 
burin,  they  impress  one  as  monotonous  and  lacking 
chalcographical  vivacity. 

'•It  remains  only  to  speak  of  the  lithographic 
system,  invented  in  recent  years  and  widely  adopted 
throughout  Europe  for  its  apparent  facility;  and  on 
account  of  this  very  facility  any  designer  presumes 
himself  to  be  an  engraver  without  previous  prepa- 
ration. A  wrong  presumption  this,  however,  be- 
cause a  special  and  peculiar  training  is  absolutely 

104 


ETIENNE  FICaUET 

necessary  on  account  of  the  difference  between  pa- 
per and  stone,  between  the  common  lead  pencil  and 
the  lithographic  pencil  (the  pencil  especially  adapted 
to  the  lithograph). 

This  system  has  made  remarkable  progress, 
due  more  to  the  perseverance  of  the  printers  in  their 
efforts  to  succeed  than  to  the  ability  of  the  designer; 
the  most  beautiful  lithographs  reach  the  acme  of 
perfection  when  they  succeed  in  producing  the  same 
effect  as  a  good  chalcographic  print  in  granito  (stip- 
ple) ;  but  as  stipple  can  never  emulate  the  graceful 
copper-plates  of  Wille,  Balechou,  Drevet  and,  least 
of  all,  those  by  Ficquet,  therefore  no  other  method  of 
engraving,  especially  the  lithograph,  could  aspire  to 
reach  the  qualities  of  the  portrait  of  La  Fontaine. 
Yes,  I  repeat,  especially  the  lithograph;  and  this  is 
not  the  fault  of  the  artist,  but  of  the  method.  En- 
gravers will  easily  understand  this.  In  the  chalco- 
graphic impression,  when — after  having  filled  the 
lines  engraved  on  the  copper  with  printing-ink — 
you  burnish  with  the  hand  the  surface  of  the  metal, 
a  light  shade  always  remains  in  the  mezzo-tinto  and 
darker  parts;  that  shade  renders  the  lines  more  soft 
and  harmonious.    In  the  lithographic  impression 

105 


ETIENN  E  FICaUET 


the  interstices  between  the  lines  and  the  points  re- 
main always  pure  white — the  white  of  the  paper 
entirely  uncovered.  Another  defect  (not  of  the 
lithograph,  but  of  the  lithographic  artist)  is  the  fol- 
lowing: The  chalcographer,  in  taking  proofs  of  his 
work,  uses  them  to  direct  him  in  giving  the  final 
touches,  diminishing  or  increasing  the  tints;  the 
lithographer,  on  the  contrary,  having  obtained  his 
first  proof,  can  only,  with  the  stroke  of  the  burin, 
subdivide  any  point  heavier  than  required,  but  he 
cannot  add  anything.  Therefore,  it  being  impossi- 
ble to  produce  in  his  work  the  necessary  harmony, 
he  is  compelled  to  resort  to  innumerable  retouch- 
ings of  each  print.  For  this  reason  lithographs, 
when  finished,  are  more  expensive  than  the  nature 
of  the  work  would  lead  one  to  suppose.  When 
La  Fontaine's  portrait  can  be  copied  by  lithography 
in  such  a  manner  that,  seen  at  a  distance,  it  may 
appear  for  a  moment  the  original  by  Ficquet,  I 
will  at  once  advise  my  pupils  to  abandon  chal- 
cography and  devote  themselves  entirely  to  the 
art  of  lithography;  and,  moreover,  I  will  do  the 
same." 

The  writer  is  indebted  for  assistance  in  this  trans- 
106 


ETIENNE  FICaUET 

lation  from  the  Italian  of  Longhi,  to  General  L. 
P.  di  Cesnola,  Director  of  the  Metropolitan  Museum 
of  Art. 


107 


LIST  OF  PORTRAITS 


LIST    OF  PORTRAITS 

ENGRAVED    BY    ETIENNE  FICQ.UET 


Addison,  Joseph.  Engraved  for  a  French  edition  of  "The  Spec- 
tator." 

Apellans  (Les).  Portraits  of  the  four  Bishops  of  Mirepoix,  Montpel- 
lier,  Senez  and  Boulogne,  seated  at  a  table.  Only  the  heads 
are  engraved  by  Ficquet. 

Ariosto,  Ludovico.  Engraved  for  an  edition  of  "  Orlando  Furioso  " 
published  by  Baskerville,  1775. 

Ariosto,  Ludovico.    A  smaller  reproduction  of  the  above. 

Arland,  Jacques-Antoine.    Published  by  Descamps,  IV,  p.  116. 

Auvergne,  Charles  de  Valois,  Comte  d'.    Published  by  Odieuvre. 

Backhuizen,  Ludolf  (Louis).    Descamps,  II,  p.  443. 

Balen,  Henri  Van.    Descamps,  I,  p.  237. 

Balue,  Cardinal  Jean,  Odieuvre. 

Beck,  David.    Descamps,  II,  p.  313. 

Berchem,  Nicolas.  Odieuvre. 

Berghem,  Corneille  (same  portrait  as  above,  with  another  inscrip- 
tion). Odieuvre. 
Bernard  (Due  de  Saxe-Weimar).  Odieuvre. 
Bernier,  Nicolas.  Odieuvre. 
Bernouilli,  Jean.  Odieuvre. 
Beze,  Theodore  de. 

Bisschop,  Jean  de.    Descamps,  III,  p.  184. 
Block,  Joanne  Koerten.    Descamps,  III,  p.  273. 

1 1 1 


LIST    OF  PORTRAITS 


BoiLEAu,  Nicolas  Despreaux. 

Boomen,  Arnold.    Descamps,  IV,  p.  137. 

BossuET,  Jacques  Benigne. 

Brandenburg,  Jean.    Descamps,  IV,  p.  23. 

BrandmuUer,  Gregoire.    Descamps,  IV.  p.  31. 

Broussel,  Pierre  de.  Odieuvre. 

Brauwer,  Adrien.    Descamps,  II,  p.  128. 

Bruin,  Corneille  de.    Descamps,  III,  p.  297. 

Charles  XII.  Odieuvre. 

Chabannes,  Antoine  de.  Odieuvre. 

Charles  Frederic  III.  Odieuvre. 

Chaubert,  Ludovicus. 

Chaulieu,  Guillaume  Amfrie  de.  Odieuvre. 
Chennevieres,  De. 

Cicero,  Marcus  Tullius.    Engraved  to  illustrate  an  edition  of  Ci- 
cero's "  De  Amicitia,"  published  by  Barbou,  1771. 
Coques,  Gonzales.    Descamps,  II,  p.  262. 

Corneille,  Pierre.    N.  B. — E.  Gaucher  made  a  good  copy  of  this 

portrait  and  Droyer  a  very  bad  one. 
Courayer,  Pierre  Franfois  le.  Odieuvre. 
Crayer,  Gaspard  de.    Descamps,  I,  p.  350. 
Crebillon,  Prosper  Jolyot  de. 
Denner,  Balthasar.    Descamps,  IV,  p.  253. 
Descartes,  Rene. 

Deyster,  Louis  de.    Descamps,  III,  p.  336. 

Dortous  de  Mairan,  Jean  Jacques.    Published  at  Geneva,  i  748. 

Dow,  Gerard.    Descamps,  II,  p.  216. 

Dujardin,  Karl  ou  Karel.    Descamps,  III,  p.  111. 

Dullaert,  Heiman.    Descamps,  III,  p.  47. 

Dumolin,  Charles.  Odieuvre. 

Dunz,  Jean.    Descamps,  III,  p.  175. 

Duquesne,  Abraham.  Odieuvre. 

112 


LIST    OF  PORTRAITS 


Duval,  Robert.    Descamps,  III,  p.  172. 

Dyck,  Antoine  van.    Descamps,  II,  p.  8. 

EeckhoLit,  Gerbiandt  van  den.    Descamps,  II,  p.  327. 

EiSEN,  Charles.      Engraved  for  a  frontispiece  to  the  2nd  vol. 

"  Contes  de  la  Fontaine,"  Amsterdam,  1762. 
Elias,  Mathieu.    Descamps,  III,  p.  377. 
Estrees,  Gabrielle  d'.  Odieuvre. 
Everdingen,  Albert  van.    Descamps,  II,  p.  319. 
Faes,  Pierre  van  der.    Descamps,  II,  p.  256. 
Fagon,  Guy  Crescent.  Odieuvre. 
Farnese,  Alexandre.  Odieuvre. 

Fenelon,  De  Lamothe.    Published  in  1 778  and  sold  by  Ficquet  for 
3  francs. 

Flavigny,  Francois  Paul  Jerome  de  Geps  de. 
Flinck,  Govaert.    Descamps,  II,  p.  246. 

Fontaine,  Jean  de  la,  1 .    Copied  by  Macret,  reversed  ;  also  by  La 
Chaussee. 

Fontaine,  Jean  de  la,  2.     Engraved  for  a  frontispiece  to  the  1st 

vol.  "  Contes  de  la  Fontaine,"  Amsterdam,  1762. 
Fontanges,  Duchesse  de.  Odieuvre. 
Genoels,  Abraham,  lejeune.    Descamps,  III,  p.  92. 
Harcourt,  Comte  de  (Henry  de  Lorraine).  Odieuvre. 
Heem,  Jean  David  de.    Descamps,  II,  p.  37. 
Helmont,  Zeger  Jacques  van.    Descamps,  IV,  p.  236. 
Heist,  Bartholme  on  Barthelmey  van  der.    Descamps,  II,  p.  199. 
Hoet,  Gerard.    Descamps,  III,  p.  232. 
Hondekoeter,  Melchior.    Descamps,  III,  p.  44. 
Hondius,  Abraham.    Descamps,  III,  p.  280. 
Hoogstraten,  Jean  van.    Descamps,  II,  p.  407. 
Hoogstraten,  Samuel  van.    Descamps,  II,  p.  383. 
Houbraken,  Arnold.    Descamps,  IV,  frontispiece. 
Huber,  Jean  Rudolph.    Descamps,  IV,  p.  125. 

«>3 


LIST    OF  PORTRAITS 


Huysmans,  Corneille.    Descamps,  III^  p.  241. 
HuYsuM,  Jean  van.    Descamps,  IV,  p.  229. 
Kalf,  Guillaume,    Descamps,  II,  p.  431. 
Kneller,  Godefroid.    Descamps,  III,  p.  225. 
Kupetzki,  Jean.    Descamps,  IV,  p.  95. 
La  CoLir,  Jacques  de  la. 
La  Cour,  Michel  de  la. 

Laiiesse,  Gerard  de.    Descamps,  III,  p.  101. 
Le  Vayer,  F.  De  la  Mothe,  i . 
Le  Vayer,  Franfois  De  la  Mothe,  2. 
Lanfranc.  Odieuvre. 

Liebnitz,  Godefroi  Guillaume.    Published  at  Geneva,  1745. 
Lingelbach,  Jean.    Descamps,  II,  p.  372. 
Louis  V.  Odieuvre. 
Louis  VII.  Odieuvre. 

Louis  Quinze.    Engraved  for  the  "Almanach  Parisien  de  Barbou." 

Maimbourg,  Louis.  Odieuvre. 

Maintenon,  Franfoise  d'Aubigne,  Marquise  de. 

Melder,  Gerard.    Descamps^  IV,  p.  280. 

Merian,  Marie  Sibylle.    Descamps,  III,  p.  200. 

Meulen,  Antoine  Francois  van  der.    Descamps,  III,  p.  1. 

MiERis,  Francois  van.    Descamps,  III,  p.  13. 

MiERis,  Guillaume  van.    Descamps,  IV,  p.  45. 

MiGNARD,  Pierre.  Odieuvre. 

Miramion,  Marie  Bonneau,  Dame  de.  Odieuvre. 

MoLiERE,  Jean  Baptiste  Poquelin  de. 

Montaigne^  Michel  de. 

Moor,  Charles  de.    Descamps,  III,  p.  328. 

Moucheron,  Isaac.    Descamps,  IV,  p.  153. 

Muret,  Marc  Antoine. 

Musscher,  Michel  van.    Descamps,  III,  p.  181. 
Myn,  Hermann  van  der.    Descamps,  IV,  p.  245. 

114 


LIST    OF  PORTRAITS 


Netscher,  Theodore.    Descamps,  IV,  p.  38. 
Oost,  Jacques  van.    Descamps,  ill,  p.  55. 
Orley,  Richard  van.    Descamps,  III,  p.  300. 
Ossat,  Arnaud  d'.  Odieuvre. 
Ovens,  Jurien.    Descamps,  II,  p.  279. 
Overbeck,  Bonaventure  van.    Descamps,  IV,  p.  7. 
Pare,  Ambroise.  Odieuvre. 
Plas,  David  van  der.    Descamps,  ill,  p.  213, 
Pool,  Rachel  Ruisch  van.    Descamps,  IV,  p.  65. 
Pope,  Alexandre.    See  Addison  and  Steele. 
Prevost,  Antoine  Francois.  Odieuvre. 
Pucelle,  Rene.  Odieuvre. 

Pufendorff,  Samuel.     Engraved  for  his  "  History  of  the  Uni- 
verse." 

Pynaker,  Adam.    Descamps,  II,  p.  317. 
Regnard,  Jean  Francois. 

Rickaert,  David,  Le  Jeune.    Descamps,  II,  p.  233. 

Rigaud,  Hyacinthe.  Odieuvre. 

Robert  XXXVl^  Roy  de  France.  Odieuvre. 

Rokes,  Henry,  surnamed  Zorg.    Descamps,  II,  p.  322. 

Rombouts,  Theodore.    Descamps,  I,  p.  425. 

Roore,  Jacques  de  (called  Rorus).    Descamps,  IV,  p,  262. 

Roos,  Jean  Henri.    Descamps,  IV,  p.  437. 

Roos,  Philippe.    Descamps,  III,  p.  319. 

Rousseau,  Jean  Baptiste. 

Rousseau,  Jean  Jacques. 

Rubens,  Pierre  Paul.    Descamps,  I,  p.  297. 

Rugendas,  Georges  Philippe.    Descamps,  IV,  p.  78. 

Saugrain,  Guillaume  Claude. 

Savery,  Rolant.    Descamps,  I,  p.  293. 

Schalken,  Godefroy.    Descamps,  III,  p.  138. 

Silva,  Jean  Baptiste  da. 

••5 


LIST    OF  PORTRAITS 


Steele,  Richard.    This  plate,  with  those  of  Pope  and  Addison, 

was  made  for  a  French  edition  of  "  The  Spectator." 
Steen,  Jean.    Descamps,  III,  p.  26. 

Swift,  Le  Docteur.    Engraved  for  a  work  upon  the  life  and  writ- 
ings of  Swift  by  the  Count  d'Orreri. 
Teniers,  David  le  jeune.    Descamps,  II,  p.  153. 
Terburg,  Gerard.    Descamps,  II,  p.  123. 
Terwesten,  Augustin.    Descamps,  III,  p.  245. 
Terwesten,  Mathieu.    Descamps,  IV,  p.  144. 
Tideman,  Philippe.    Descamps,  III,  p.  369. 

Tillemans,  Simon  Pierre  (surnamed  Schenk).     Descamps,  II,  p. 
123. 

Torenvliet,  Jacques.    Descamps,  111,  p.  121. 

Toulouse,  Louis  Alex  de  Bourbon,  Comte  de.  Odieuvre. 

Vade,  Jean  Joseph. 

Vaillant,  Jacques.    Descamps,  II,  p.  405. 

Vaillant,  Wallerant.    Descamps,  II,  p.  331. 

Vavasseur,  Guillaume.  Odieuvre. 

Velde,  Adrien  van  den.    Descamps,  111,  p.  72. 

Verkolie,  Jean.    Descamps,  111,  p.  257. 

Verkolie,  Nicolas.    Descamps,  IV,  p.  168. 

Verschuring,  Henri.    Descamps,  II,  p.  394. 

Vinne,  Vincent  van  der.    Descamps,  II,  p.  417. 

ViRGiLE.    Engraved  for  an  edition  of  his  works. 

Voet,  Charles  Bosschaert.    Descamps,  IV,  p.  1 58. 

VoUevens,  Jean.    Descamps,  III,  p.  251. 

Voltaire,  Franfois  Marie  Arouet. 

Voorhout,  Jean.    Descamps,  III,  p.  207. 

Vuez,  Arnold  de,  or  Van  Wez.    Descamps,  III,  p.  125. 

Waser,  Anna.    Descamps,  IV,  p.  202. 

Weenix,  Jean.    Descamps,  111,  p.  164. 

Weenixjean  Baptiste.    Descamps,  II,  p.  306. 

116 


LIST    OF  PORTRAITS 


Werdmuller,  Jean  Rudolf.    Descamps,  III,  p.  85. 
Werf,  Adrien  van  der.    Descamps,  III,  p.  383. 
Werner,  Joseph  le  Jeune.    Descamps,  III,  p.  61. 
Wildens,  Jean.    Descamps,  1,  p.  336. 
Wolters,  Henriette.    Descamps,  IV,  p.  272. 
WouvERMAN,  Philippe.    Descamps,  II,  p.  286. 
Wultraat,  Mathieu.    Descamps,  III,  p.  218. 
Zacht-Leeven,  Herman.    Descamps,  II,  p.  146. 
Zacht-Leeven,  Corneille.    Descamps,  II,  p.  195. 

LIST  OF  PORTRAITS 

ENGRAVED    AND    PUBLISHED  BY 
PIERRE  SAVART 

Alembert,  Jean  le  Rond  de. 
Bayle,  Pierre. 

Bernis,  Franfois  Joachim  de  Pierre. 

BoiLEAU,  Nicolas  Despreaux,  i. 

Boileau,  Nicolas  Despreaux,  2. 

BossuET,  Jacques  Benigne. 

Bruyere,  Jean  de  la,  i . 

Bruyere,  Jean  de  la,  2. 

BuFFON,  George  Louis  Leclerc,  Comte  de. 

Catinat,  Nicolas  de. 

Chevert,  Francois  de. 

Chaulieu,  Guillaume  Amfrie  de. 

Christian  VII,  King  of  Denmark  and  Norway, 

Colbert,  Jean  Baptiste. 

Conde,  Louis  de  Bourbon,  Prince  de. 

Deshoulieres,  Antoinette  de  la  Garde. 

Fenelon,  Franfois  de  Salignac  de  Lamotte. 

Fontaine,  Jean  de  la. 

117 


LIST    OF  PORTRAITS 


FoNTENELLE,  Bernard  de. 
Leibnitz,  Godefroi  Guillaume. 
Livry,  Nicolas  de. 
Louis,  Le  Grand. 

Louis  XVI,  King  of  France  and  Navarre. 
Louis  Auguste  (i6th),  King  of  France. 
Marie  Antoinette,  Queen  of  France. 
Montalembert,  Marc  Rene  Mis  de. 
Montesquieu,  Charles  Secondat  de. 
Rabelais,  Francois. 
Racine,  Jean. 

Richelieu,  Armand  du  Plessis,  Cardinal  de. 
Rousseau^  J.  J. 
Stanislas,  Roi  de  Pologne. 
Tasso,  Torquato. 


INDEX 


\ 


INDEX 


rVUUloUIl           .          .  . 

73 

rVCJUdllUl        .         .  . 

30 

AlJUdlllllc      •         .  . 

30 

All  nnintillp 

20—2  3 

Rihpl 

Baldini,  Baccio  . 

6 

Balechou 

62,  105 

Da.1  UUUj  r\lillallacii 

Pari- 

sien  "... 

Bartolozzi,  F. 

23,  104 

Bartsch  .... 

9 

Basan,  Pierre-Franfois 

69,  91 

Bayle  .... 

80 

Berchem 

•  73 

Bewick,  T.  . 

•  39 

Boileau  .... 

79,  80 

Bossuet    79,  80,  84,  91 

,  92,  93 

Botticelli,  Sandro 

6 

Boucher,  F.  . 

•  23 

Brauwer 

•  73 

Breydenbach,  B.  de  . 

'3 

Bryan,  "  Dictionary  " 

•  '3 

Buffon  .... 

80 

Bylaert  .... 

•  23 

Callot,  Jacques  . 

.  48 

Catinat,  Nicolas  . 

74,  80 

Cesnola,  Gen.  L.  P.  di 

107 

Chalk  engraving 

•  23 

Choffard,  P.  P.  .  . 

53,  60 

Claude  .... 

20 

Cochin,  C.  N.  . 

.  60 

Colbert 

79,  80 

Conde,  Prince  de 

.  80 

Copper-plate  engraving 

14-20 

Cousin,  Jean 

•  '3 

Crayer,  Gaspard  de  . 

73 

De  Heem 

•  73 

Denner  .... 

•  73 

Descartes 

69,  93 

Deshoulieres,  Madame 

73,  80 

Dow,  Gerard 

58,  74 

Drevet  ...     57,  58,  105 

Dry  den,  J.  . 

•  93 

Dry  Point  . 

25,  26 

Duchesne  Aine,  "  Essai 

sur 

les  Nielles  "  . 

9 

Duplessis,  G.,  "  Histoire  de 

la  Gravure,"  26, 

53,  57, 

74,  83,  84,  91 

Diirer,  Albert          .  9, 

23,  39 

Duvet,  Jean 

'3,  '4 

Earlom,  R.  . 

104 

INDEX 


Edelinck,  G.  .  .  48,  63 
Eisen,  C.  .  .  .  50,  62 
Engraving.  Origin  and  early 

history   .     .  •  =^-'4 

Engraving.     Description  of 

various  processes  14-42 
Etching  24,  25,  41 ,  103 

Evelyn,  J.,  "  Diary,"      .  35 

Faucheux,  M.  L,  E.  49,  54,  61, 
73,  79,  80,  91 
Fenelon      .  79,  80,  93 

Ficquet,  Etienne  24,  48,  49-73, 
95-106,  109-1 17 

 Birth  and  Education  49 

 Plates  to  La  Fontaine 

50,  53,  99-J03 

 Portrait  of  Madame  de 

Maintenon    .      .      55,  56 

 Anecdotes  of     53,  54,  57 

 Methods  and  character 

of  his  work   .      .  57-59 
 Series  of  portraits  pub- 
lished by  Odieuvre  60-67 

 Death  ....  67 

 Portraits  engraved  by  67 

 Market  value  of  prints  70 

 Longhi's    estimate  of 

95-106 

 List   of  portraits  en- 
graved by    .      .  109-117 
Fielding,  T.  H.    "Art  of 

Engraving "  .  .  16,  23 
Finiguerra,  Maso  .  6,  8,  9 
Fragonard  .  .  .  .  57 
French,  E.  Davis  31 

Gaultier,  Leonard     .     .  63 


Geminus,  Thomas  .  .  10 
Grateloup,  Jean-Baptiste  de 

48,  83-93 

 birth  and  education  83 

 secret  process  used  by  87 

 portraits  engraved  by  88 

 opinions  of  critics  on 

his  work     .  91 

  death  ....  92 

 market  value  of  prints  92 

 list  of  portraits  en- 
graved by  .  ,  .  93 
Grateloup,  J.  P.  S.  de  87,  92 
Gravure  a  la  maniere  noire  28-36 
Gravure  a  la  pointe  seche  25,  26 
Gravure  a  I'eau  forte  24,  25,  41 
Gravure  au  burin  '4-20,  41 
Gravure  en  demi-teinte  28-36 
Gravure  en  maniere  de 

crayon  ....  23 
Gravure  en  maniere  de  lavis 

36-39 

Gravure  en  taille  de  bois  39-41 


Gravure  en  taille  douce  1 4-20 
Gutenberg,  John  6 

Haden  20 

Hamerton,  P.  G.  19,  24,  26,  27 
Heinecken,  Baron  8 
Houbraken  ....  73 

Jansen  .  .      .      37,  4' 

Joly  9' 

Jombert,  Charies-Antoine,  68 
Jonas,  Richard    ...  10 

Koburger,  Antony  .  .  lo 
Kneller  73 


122 


INDEX 


La  Bruyere  . 

oO 

La  Fontaine       53,  69 

,  70, 

74. 

99-103, 

105 

Lasne,  Michael  . 

03 

Ottlpv  0 

Le  Bas,  Jacques  Philip 

24 

50 

Le  Clerc,  Sebastian  . 

4» 

rapuion,        1  raue     ae  la 

Lecouvreur  . 

93 

vjr<dvure  en  dois         .      4 ' 

Leibnitz 

74 

Pptitnt  8/1 

Leu^  Thomas  de 

03 

Pleydenwurffj  William    .  10 

Lewis,  F.  C. 

38 

Poilly  62 

Line  engraving  .  14-20 

4> 

Polignac     ...      88,  93 

Lithographie  4'> 

104- 

100 

Ponce,  Nicolas  .      53>  57, 

Lithography     41,  42, 

104- 

100 

Pope,  73 

Livry,  Nicolas  de 

OO 

Portalis,    Baron  Roger 

Longhi,  G.,  extracts 

from 

49,  53.  58,  73,  79,  88,  91 

*'  La  Calcografia  " 

95- 

106 

roiier,  raui       .      .     .  37 

Louis  XV  . 

73 

79 

Prevost  69 

Louis  XVI 

80 

Prince,  Jean  Baptiste  le    .  38 

Maberly,  J.,    "  Print 

Col- 

Rabelais      ....  80 

lector"  .     .  . 

7 

Racine  ....      79,  80 

Maintenon,  Madame  de 

53, 

54, 

Radier,  Dreux  de      .  63 

103 

ivaimoncii,  iviarc  Anionio  .  0 

Mantegna,  Andrea  . 

6 

rvaVciicL,  ounuii  rimiLio   .  23 

Marie  Antoinette 

80 

Rawlinson,  W.  G.,  "Turner's 

63 

'  Liber  Studiorum  '  "  .  35 

Meryon,  Charles 

20 

48 

Rembrandt  .                 20,  37 

Mezzotint    .  28 

-36,  104 

Richelieu     ....  80 

Mignard,  Pierre  . 

53 

73 

Rogers,  S.,  "Poems"     .  20 

Moliere  .... 

70 

ivousscdu,  J.J.    •       09,  79,  93 

Montaigne  . 

69 

Rubens       .      .          73,  103 

Montesquieu 

93 

Rupert,  Prince    .           32,  35 

Morgan,  Junius  S. 

5 

Ruskin,  J.,  "Modern 

Painters "...  20 

Nanteuil,  Robert 

48 

58 

Ryland,    William  Wynne 

Netscher 

73 

23,  50 

Niello  .... 

6-8 

Nuremberg  Chronicle 

10 

St.  Non,  Abbe  R.  de      .  37 

123 


INDEX 


Sandby,  Paul  ...  38 
Savart,  Pierre     .  48,  69,  73-83 


 Birth  and  marriage  .  74 

 First  engraving  by  .  74 

 Adopts  a  new  manner  79 

 Work  deteriorates   .  79 

 Portraits  engraved  by  80 


 List  of  portraits  en- 
graved and  published  by 

117,  118 
Schmidt,  George  Frederick 

49.  50,  60,  62 
Schoen,  Martin  ...  9 
Senefelder^  Alois  .  41 
Siegen,  Ludwig  von  .  32 
Soft  ground  etching  .  27 

Steele  73 

Steen,  Jan  ....  73 
Stipple  .      .  20-23,  104 

Stockton-Hough,  Dr.  .11 
Strange,  Robert  ...  50 


Swift,  .... 

73 

Tardieu,  Nicolas  . 

50 

Teniers,  D.  . 

73 

Terburg 

73 

Turner,  J.  M,  W.  25 

,  35,  38 

Vander  Velde 

73 

Van  Dyck  . 

73,  103 

Van  Huysum 

•  73 

Van  Mieris  . 

.  73 

Vasari  .... 

.   6,  7 

Vertue,  George  . 

10 

wiiie  .... 

At     I  r»c 

Wohlgemuth,  Michael 

.  9,  10 

Wood  engraving 

39-41 

Wouvermans 

73 

Xylography 

39-4 « 

Zani,  Abbe  . 

9 

Zegers,  Hercule  . 

37 

ERRATA 


Page  36,  line  17:  for  a  I'eau  forte  pur,  read  d  I'eau 
forte  pure. 

Page  68,  line  2  :  for  Flamandes  read  Flamands. 
Page  70,  lines  18  and  22  :  for  pur  resid  pure. 


rvKNO  LA  ni^ 
t  VNA  AIKVZIA 


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